An internet site has been launched that hopes to corner web-based sales of interior and exterior doors to the trade and public.
www.directdoors.com – developed by Edinburgh-based joinery company The Door Centre over the past 10 months – is offering direct sales of doors within 5-21 days of ordering. The site is being advertised initially in Scottish Yellow Pages but there are plans for it to be featured in English editions.
Door Centre director Michael Froude has spun the dotcom venture out of The Door Centre’s existing brochure-based door business with 4,000 trade customers in Scotland and the north of England.
Mr Froude said: ‘The trade is distance-buying from our brochures at the moment and I can’t see why they should not be equally happy to buy from our website.
‘And, pretty soon they will not necessarily need a PC to access the internet given that you can now buy televisions with decent modems.’
A 20,000ft² factory has been opened at Penicuik outside Edinburgh with £250,000 of new machinery to cater for the increase in sales.
Initially directdoors, which lists a wide range of timber and PVCu products on its 3,500 pages, will have a differential pricing tariff for the public and trade but expects prices to level out in the longer term.
Mr Froude forecasts that the site, plus organic growth in brochure-based sales, will deliver a 50% rise in turnover during the coming year. This will take the company’s output to 2,100 doors per month.
