Take an ordinary door

Over the past 15 years the composite door market has been on an almost unstoppable upward trajectory with continued growth in both the new build and replacement sectors. This boom has, however, created a level of competition reminiscent of the heady days of the PVC window market as more and more companies offer ‘me too’ products. It has ultimately led to prices dropping and margins with them.

The key to maintaining margin is to have a product or service that makes you stand out from your competitors and allows homeowners to have a product made to their exact specification and design choice, rather than just another standard door. As the market moves into the stage of replacement composite doors, the previous drivers of security and energy efficiency are no longer the primary reason for change. Consumers are increasingly focussed on aesthetics, personalisation and style.

RegaLead products have always been a key component in the personalisation and differentiation of composite doors. Over the years, we have continued to invest in new glass design and colour options. More recently we expanded our customisation products to include sidelight options and glazing frame styles.

All of these elements can be used to transform an ordinary door into an extraordinary door, that’s completely personalised to a homeowner’s design preferences and the style of their property.

For most door sales, after choosing a style, consumers focus on the colour. There have always been thousands of colours available for painting the inside of our homes, and now people want more than a limited colour palette for their entrance door. Through our ColorSpray division, RegaLead has developed a selection of carefully curated door colour options.

This range continues to develop, with new shades being added every year to reflect the latest trends and tastes. Pink is definitely the colour of 2020, and if you follow Instagram influencers like Mrs Hinch, you’ll see consumers want to change the colour of everything to pink in their home! Our latest Pink shades, Miami Sky and Cotton Candy, are proving increasingly popular and work beautifully with both contemporary and heritage-style entranceways.

But don’t let that restrict you. If our standard range of more than 100 colours isn’t enough, we are able to offer our specialist paint system in an almost infinite colour range and match colours from all the major paint suppliers.

After colour comes glass design. For many resellers this is the most difficult area of the sales process. With so many possible design options available to them, customers can get caught up in the “tyranny of choice” and become indecisive. This is where the sales process needs guidance to help consumers choose a look that not only suits the door design but also the style of their property and budget.

Door builders undoubtedly help in this process and the better ones out there can superimpose the new door on the existing property. We have worked closely with Business Micros, Tommy Trinder and Price Pad to get composite door glass options incorporated into designers, whilst also creating our own configurator. However, leaving customers to choose designs from a builder is far from the consultative sell that adds value and generates the best margins for installers.

Helping homeowners to select the right glass designs for an installation requires an understanding of their requirements, budgets and the look they want to achieve. Is it about maintaining the period look of a property? Do they want to create a ‘wow factor’ with a stunning contemporary design? or is it purely a functional requirement?

Certain door styles and glass designs lend themselves better to certain housing stock. Craftsman doors, combined with traditional glass designs such as Dorchester and Beaumont, work particularly well in inter-war properties. In more modern house styles, contemporary designs such as DoorCo’s Monza 2, with our new Greenwich and Richmond etched designs, have proven a huge hit. There are regional trends too, where specific parts of the country favour different colours and design in glass. The most obvious examples being Macintosh roses in Scotland and Red or White roses for the Lancastrian and Yorkshire markets, trends which have carried over from the PVC panel days.

To help installers through the sales process, we have created a series of mini-brochures and style guides to help customers and installers navigate the more complex arena of decorative glass. Following on from our hugely successful Essentials Collection of standard, price-driven products we are adding a series of new Heritage, Premium, Contemporary and Coastal inspired brochures. Each one incorporates door styles, colours and glass options that work together, and they’re designed to both inspire the consumer and simplify the sales process, helping installers maintain margins on every door sale.