Composite doors have huge end user appeal but differentiation can be difficult to establish. Fenestra Build reports on how the answer may be close to home.

Type ‘composite doors’ and ‘UK’ into Google and you get 1,660,000 results back. The approach maybe unscientific but nonetheless makes the point succinctly, that there are a lot of companies, trade and retail, selling composite doors.

Identifying points of differentiation between them can be difficult, something not made any easier by Nan Ya’s continuing domination in slab supply, which by Distinction’s count as its sole supplier in the UK, now accounts for more than 40 per cent of the UK market.

Emplas threw in its lot into this still lucrative, if increasingly crowded sector, last year as part of the launch of its new Emplas Installer Partnership, the fabricator’s own Installer Network. This offers a host of ‘sweetners’ to qualifying installers including their own-branded tape, to website builds and free laptops, in addition to 24/7 access to online quoting and ordering and the Emplas Customer Portal.

What it also gives them is access to one of the most competitively priced composite door ranges, which the fabricator has combined with one of the industry’s most comprehensive retail support packages. “We knew that our approach had to be different”, explains Mike Crewdson, Emplas, Sales and Marketing Director, Emplas.

“The launch of our composite door range was tied-in to that of our Installer Partnership but we have invested a huge amount of effort into it in its own right, identifying, developing and testing a series of USP’s from product specification to the marketing support that we offer.”

Emplas is more or less unique in the way that it does this. Rather than shying away from the fact that it has its own retail business – the G14 award-winning T&K – it promotes the insight and understanding that this direct retail experience gives it to add value to its trade proposition.

This is manifest in this case in the very different approach that it has applied to the features of its composite door offer.

With Secured by Design as standard, the Wellingborough fabricator rationalised its offer to launch a carefully selected suite of products designed to maximise installer margin while preserve quality and end user appeal.

“The feedback that we got through T&K, both from the team out there selling it and from the end users, was that consumers were swamped by the massive choice of door leafs the industry was offering. Rather than seeing it as a positive it was actually too much, making it difficult to sell and difficult to close out deals”, continues Crewdson.

This insight has led Emplas onto a path ‘less travelled’, rationalising its offer and focussing on the key drivers of consumer purchases to create a carefully selected offer.

This features five solid styles, 21 glazed options, four side panels and four stable doors. A host of glass options, include twin-glazed Georgian or standard lead, a fusion offer featuring Murano; Fleur or Mackintosh in resin and Inspiration and Diamonds as overlay. Triple glazed options feature Zinc or Brass Carnes, Andaman. Flores, Kara, Scotia, Abstract, Prairie, Royale and Simplicity.

Door leafs are available in Black, Blue, Green, Red, White, Gold Oak and Rose Wood as standard, Emplas also offers heritage colours including Chartwell, Duck Egg and Ice Cream through to a host of specialist finishes. Bespoke RAL finishes are available through its own in-house paint-shop Kolorplas.

“The multiples of glass and colours, give consumers huge choice. Multiple colour options, allow for further refinement but you aren’t overloading the homeowner”, says Crewdson.

To illustrate that on this occasion, a smaller range is truly a ‘beautiful thing’, the Emplas composite door comes with a host of features, designed to deliver more to and make life easier for, the installer. This includes fully adjustable hinges; a high security locking mechanism featuring two hook bolts and a dead lock; multiple threshold options and a u-value as low as 0.9 W/m².K.

Hardware is Fab&Fix, featuring the Balmoral lever, which is available in a choice of white, gold, chrome and satin, with high security cylinders and cylinder guards as standard. Doors also feature fully reinforced 70mm PVC-U outer frame, jambs and head and meet Secured by Design as standard.

“The rationalisation that we have achieved in our range allows us to deliver greater margin to the installer. What we haven’t done is to cut back on quality because that’s what our reputation and their reputation is built on”, says Crewdson. He adds: “We have looked for the ways to make selling composite doors simpler and higher margin and pulled them into a single package.”

Alongside a composite door range that has been developed on the back of extensive market research, the centerpiece of this strategy is the marketing support that goes with it. Here again, Emplas has chosen an alternative route, developing new sales literature that simplifies the proposition to the end user but which can also be personalised to reflect the installer’s brand and local identity.

“This isn’t about over-printing with a logo”, says Crewdson, “It’s about linking the offer to the installer’s brand and most importantly embedding them and the range in the local area that they serve. The value of brand association with the area you work in is of incredible value and a real point of differentiation, and we recognise that is a significant asset in a very competitive market place.”

While Emplas has refined its consumer messaging through its direct retail experience at T&K to create a contemporary new composite door brochure, it is extending its reach by offering complete installer ‘personalisation’ – this includes not just images but the very names of the door ranges it offers.

Dropping a pin on a map, the award winning T&K marketing team has successfully linked its composite door range to its Northamptonshire sales area by naming its ranges after local villages. The T&K brochure consequently features the Cransley, Gretton, Mawsley and Loddington Ranges, alongside the Grendon cottage door.

“It’s simple but exceptionally effective. People feel as if they have a personal stake in the product. Our marketing team works with our customers to recreate that same local association. They can also select local images, whatever they want to make it reflect their specific area.

“In the composite door sector this offers a genuine and rare point of differentiation. We know it works and are fully committed to supporting our customers in making it work for them as part of our Installer Partnership.”