New build market demands frame price drop

Realistically mark-up your products and you will avoid running your business into the ground, comments Sash UK's joint managing director Dave Ruzicka.

Already the fenestration industry has faced its most challenging term in business, with the beginning of 2008 acting as a true testing ground for those companies that know what it means to run their operations professionally, while others just fall by the wayside after slashing product costs down to all time lows.

Yet it transpires that some of the biggest names in the new build market are now applying unreasonable pressures on frame manufactures to do exactly that.

"This is unacceptable behaviour and I urge the fenestration industry not to succumb to such demands...the message is quite simple, realistically mark-up your products and you will avoid running your business into the ground," comments Sash UK's joint managing director Dave Ruzicka.

"It is the stack them high and sell them cheap mentality that has forced our industry into its current depressed state and we have all seen the outcome for ourselves, witnessing many companies that we thought would never go under, perish at their own hands through bad business management.

How much further can our industry devalue its products? Those companies that follow this path have already dictated a market expectation that has resulted in other disciplines such as the new build industry taking advantage.

"For too long now our industry has been selling its products too cheaply and the knock on effect has been disastrous in some instances, seeing the ripples reaching out to other core areas of opportunity and opening our industry up to further manipulation.

The new build market is clearly utilising current market conditions to force the proverbial hand and this should not be tolerated.

"The time to reclaim our market and bring back the standards that our industry was first built on is now.

There are many manufacturers in operation that refuse to slash prices and Sash is one of them.

We have worked for too long developing our brand and products to the highest standards possible and will not bow down to these new build companies pressurising demands onto us.

I can guarantee that if they find willing manufacturers to comply, it will be a short lived affair as they will not be able to sustain making frames for any long period of time.

"Don't let our industry be governed by outside forces; take a stand by pricing your products accordingly and help to salvage our industry's once remarkable reputation!".

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