Most cabinet manufacturers consider it a risky proposition to give the ability to see their line priced against their competitors to their dealers. The main line of thinking is that they’ll lose more business than they’ll gain. We guess that the glass is half empty in their world.
To most dealers, this doesn’t make sense. After all, they sell to consumers who just want to know that what they are getting is priced correctly. Since the product category is complex, consumers have a propensity to validate the price that they pay.
And That’s Not Easy
Since most dealers tell us that they don’t have enough selling time to do more than one plan design, they certainly wouldn’t have time to compare the design to multiple styles in the same brand or against others. After all, you make it complex because you don’t want that to happen, right?
Well it does happen, on almost every bid that your dealer gives. After all, it’s pretty simple to go somewhere else and get a competitive bid. That’s why your customer comes up will all kinds of ways to keep their design secret. They may charge for design. They may show a drawing on a monitor but not hand out printed plans. They may even have the consumer sign a waiver at the beginning saying that they can’t have the design until they pay a deposit on the purchase.
Yet, consumers find a way to go somewhere else. Even if they have to start over (which is probably why a third of consumers drop out of the sales process before they buy)
So How Does the Manufacturer Lose?
In addition to that fact that so many never buy, it’s really simple. Once they go somewhere else, it’s likely that the consumer is still in the radius of your original dealer. That usually means that they will end up somewhere that your product is not represented. That aforementioned glass is looking a little more full now isn’t it?
Solve the Problem for Them
The very least you should do is make your brand(s) transparent to your dealers. Allow them to show an array of product that you sell without having it take more selling time away. We know what you’re going to say… That just allows consumers to cherry pick us. You can’t be more wrong.
Sure, there will always be that customer. And if they do cherry pick you, at least you get a sale. More likely though, they’re just trying to validate a very complex sale. We have an inherent need to shop as humans and cabinet manufacturers strip out that need with secret decoder languages that their dealers struggle with, let alone consumers.
Break the manufacturers pricing paradigm and be the first to actually be easy to do business with.