10 years from now where will you buy your roofline?
The last ten years have been eventful, to put it mildly. Many of today’s important trends in the roofline market have been shaped by the decade.
Ten years ago, the UK roofline market – and windows and construction with it - tipped into the deepest recession in decades as banks and financial markets went into meltdown. Politics was about to go bananas, with the Scots voting for independence and the UK voting to leave the EU. Now, as Brexit nears, political parties are tearing themselves apart.
Other important trends are gaining momentum. Driven by climate change, Britain has recorded nine of the hottest years since records began, plus stronger winds, more violent storms and flooding.
Britain’s population has been growing fast, the fastest in Europe. And it’s got older. Demand for housing has outstripped supply, so house prices have grown, boosting the housing wealth of older homeowners, especially those over 55 with low or no mortgages. They account for the bulk of Britain’s savings too, and with low outgoings they have the money to invest in their biggest asset. What they spend on enhancing their homes is quickly paid for by rising house prices, so they buy what they want. This growing group of older homeowners has been driving the growth of colour, high end products and the premium market across most home improvements. And the growth of the companies that sell to them.
Roofline colour sales to grow
Colour in windows, doors and roofline is now nearly 30%, but that’s an average and some window companies’ sales are over 50% colour and growing fast. If homeowners are buying a high-end suite of foiled window and doors they’re not going to want white roofline to go with it!
Freefoam was the colour innovator in roofline and rainwater. Our patented Colourmax® technology is one of the most technically advanced colour processes for roofline and rainwater with a unique selection of stabilisers and pigments, specially chosen for their high colourfastness properties. We dose natural PVC compound on-line with special pigments, so Freefoam can produce high-quality colours quickly and easily with minimum lead times.
Supporting customers to help them grow
Unsurprisingly, stockists report strong colour sales with Freefoam products. Darren Beaumont, General Manager at C&A Building Products says: “Homeowners choose colour to enhance their properties and add kerb appeal. Colour is a key trend and customers want a full suite of colours with matching accessories. Freefoam lets us capitalise on this growth market with a choice of 16 attractive colours in fascias and soffits and six colours in rainwater guttering, all with a 10-year guarantee.”
We also offer a market-leading 50-year extended lifetime guarantee on all white roofline and rainwater products. Customers find the guarantees a great selling tool, giving homeowners the confidence to buy.
End of the road for independent roofline stockists?
Since the recession, some roofline brands have maintained their share of market by buying it, that is by buying independent building plastics roofline stockists, and/or setting up new outlets to sell their own brand. But it’s a tricky balance to maintain, selling to independent stockists while your own distribution competes with them.
But doing both has been increasingly popular over the past decade, leading to a period of relentless concentration as the share of owned distribution has increased and the number of independent stockists declined.
The buying spree has taken the share of product sold through owned distribution to over three quarters of the market, leading to some anomalies. In owned distribution, installer choice is restricted to a choice of one brand, while independent stockists increasingly find themselves competing directly with their suppliers, as supplier owned chains expand geographically. And there seems to be no easing in the buying spree. Freefoam’s policy as an independent roofline brand is to sell only through independent stockists. We believe strongly in choice, so we view this trend with concern. The threat isn’t always obvious to a stockist until it happens, but there’s only one winner when a supplier competes directly with a customer, because only one party controls the price.
Independent stockists are entrepreneurial and dynamic, and installers choose them for the service and choice they offer. But most of their business tends to be concentrated within a small radius locally, so they can’t always see what’s happening outside their area. It’s only when a roofline brand-owned chain encroaches on their patch that they appreciate the potential conflict, and by then it’s too late.
Helping customers grow
Our service goes beyond product, and Freefoam is committed to helping customers grow, because, let’s face it, customers’ growth is our growth. This help goes beyond POS, samples and marketing packages for customers, to providing their customers with quality leads generated through our consumer facing sites: www.myrooflinematters.co.uk and www.mycladding.co.uk. We’re very much into working with customers, not controlling them.