If buyers purchase timber unsuitable for their intended purpose, the subsequent disappointment may engender bad feeling towards the main source of our livelihoods. Picture Mr & Mrs Consumer enthused by wood. for good and now out there seeking wooden flooring.
They’ve tried some DIY tasks and with their small amount of wood knowledge they head for the builders’ merchant. They could easily become distracted.
Flooring tile manufacturers supply large sample boards and glossy leaflets. Tile pricing is simple and easy to calculate, and staff are familiar with installation. The purchase-to-usage chain is very user-friendly.
For wood to compete, it has to look, feel and be presented as a simple, user-friendly and trustworthy product. Consumers are not interested in their weekend DIY project turning into a labour of love for timber: they expect to be able to achieve results quickly. They want fully-finished products available off-the-peg. One sector of the timber business responding to consumers’ off-the-peg desires is decking. Even the most hardened DIY-ers want a system ready for construction that can be quickly assembled on-site.
Howarth Timber Importers aims to make it easy for consumers to see what they are buying, and in doing so make it easier for outlets to sell their decking products. Managing director Andrew Howarth said: ‘By designing software which emulates kitchen planning, showing how a deck will eventually look, we ensure a swift route to market. The decking outlet is able to efficiently market the product to consumer-expected standards, and the visual imagery helps to close the end-of-line sale.’
The company’s software creates deck designs while simultaneously performing the relevant stress calculations for elevated decks to conform with building regulations. Today’s consumers, buyers and specifiers are conditioned to expect quality as in-built.
Against this background it is easy to see why the British Woodworking Federation’s promotion of fully factory-finished, ready-to-install windows, marketed with its Timber Window Accreditation Scheme guarantee, has been so successful.
Market enthusiasm is now driving wood products manufacturers to find ways of producing quality products in higher volumes. To achieve this growth, the trade is also exploring the ‘fit for purpose’ concept from a different angle.
Ron Cohen, group managing director of STP in Derbyshire and president of the BWF, said: ‘The generation of interest in timber windows has to be matched by the ability of the industry to manufacture products at a cost, which is profitable both to window producers and window buyers.’
The same can be said of the wood furniture sector. Rob Simpson, managing director of SCA Timber, said: ‘Furniture producers are specialists in the design, assembly and marketing of furniture. They don’t expect to be experts in wood fibre – they regard that as the timber supplier’s job. Suppliers must understand end usage and be prepared to tailor products accordingly.
There’s a new catch-phrase coming into the home decoration sector in the US: “Do it for me”. This is taking over from the old notion of “do it yourself”. The same is happening in the UK timber supply business.’
Increasing consumer confidence is bringing about fundamental changes in the timber industry. By embedding the ‘fit for purpose’ concept throughout the trade, we can all look forward to a profitable future. nn
