From:
Gareth Mobley,
CEO Solidor & Residor

Recently you published a letter from Doorco’s Dan Sullivan saying: “The shape of the composite door market has shifted significantly in recent years.”

Dan’s right, there’s been a notable shift in the market towards premium products. The latest report from Palmer Market Research confirms that value is growing faster than volume in the composite door market. Even in a relatively flat 2015, value was up 2% while volume rose by just 0.7%.

The trend from budget to higher-end, better performing premium products isn’t just in composite doors, and it’s driven by homeowners. There’s a growing divergence in home improvements between the Haves - older homeowners with small or no mortgages with the money to spend on beautiful premium products, and the Have Nots - younger homeowners who don’t have the money and make do with the products they need.

The number of Haves is growing. They have high and growing housing wealth, and can afford to invest in their homes. They want the innovation, quality, design, looks and superior performance that premium manufacturers offer. And they expect a higher level of service from the premium installers who supply them.

That’s why we’ve invested so much in capacity and world-class manufacturing, service and logistics. It’s so Solidor and Residor doors are easy to order via Solidor Cloud, and reliably delivered on time, in full and with care to installers, so homeowners don’t just love their doors, they also love the service their installers give them.

Palmer predicts good growth for composite doors, and we see no slowing of the trend to premium doors. Solidor and Residor installers are selling more, and last year we grew 37% over the year before. This year, we grew faster than that in January and February, and we’re expecting at least similar growth in 2017.