COLOUR
Finding the Rainbow
The growth in demand for colours and foils has come as no surprise to anyone , as the first hints have been around for some years now .
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AND IT DOES NOT NEED THE statisticians to tell us what is obvious from a walk down any residential street . People like colour , whether woodgrain or colour on grain or even through-coloured profile , and it only takes a look at any fabricator or installer ’ s stockroom to see that demand is still growing . In fact , output of colours and foils has put on half again in overall market share in just two years and it is now forecast that as much as one frame in every three sold will be coloured before the end of the year .
All the systems suppliers have responded with their own product offering but while each has reacted in its own way , the biggest difference has shown not in what they themselves have done but in the response of those further down the supply chain – or perhaps more to the point , how the systems companies have supported them in choosing their strategy .
Of course , it is an inescapable fact in any industry that half of the people wait for something to happen while the other half make it happen , and this was just so with the uptake of colour .
Carmen Velilla , Brand Manager at Spectus recalls seeing a clear division based on two distinct attitudes towards the trend for colour . She explained : “ We noticed that , while most fabricators and installers around the industry were making colours and woodgrains available , some were doing little more than reacting passively to demand from their customers .
“ But some others took a very different approach . They saw the potential that was there and grabbed it with both hands . These were the people who were out to make the very most out of this obviously massive trend … and they were the kind of people we wanted to work with . We also knew that the right level of support could not only empower the proactive ones but also help others to see what could be achieved .”
The company began by spearheading an enhanced colour and foil offering , significantly greater stock range and coordinated ancillaries with a completely new marketing campaign ‘ Chase Rainbows ’ alerting existing and potential customers to the potential as well as offering a range of promotional and marketing materials .
Of course , when fabricators and installers are offering a wider range of anything , stockholding could become an issue , especially when both trade customers and consumers expect everything to be done yesterday . Before the campaign began Epwin Window Systems had launched a new finishing facility to benefit all of its associated brands , including Spectus . Spanning 60,000sq ft , and costing £ 1.3million to complete , the facility is one of the biggest of its kind in the UK . This not only boosted foiling capacity by 25 % but also enabled it to hold up to 1,500 tonnes of stock at any time .
Carmen continued : “ We knew that stockholding would be as much a key factor as the colours themselves . In many ways , it was perhaps more important because most fabricators could not hold such a massive colour range in their own stock and they knew that neither the installers nor the end users wanted the kind of time lag that a special order might entail .”
She concluded : “ For fabricators and installers , finding that rainbow can involve much more than adding a couple more pages to their picture gallery and hoping for the best . We believe at Spectus that we have given them everything they need and the feedback from our customers tells us that they appreciate what we have done .
70 » MAR 2017 » CLEARVIEW-UK . COM