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As a business, from a sales perspective, it’s about working even closer with our strategic partners in the marketplace, helping them seek out opportunities and providing the support to ensure they convert
said Mr Wilson. “It’s been about working harder – not that we don’t always work hard! But it’s meant going deeper and deeper into the market to make sure we’re staying ahead. As a business, from a sales perspective, it’s about working even closer with our strategic partners in the marketplace, helping them seek out the opportunities and providing the support to ensure they convert.” SAM says it also has a firm foundation to build on given its broad mix of partner customers. “We have developed a very healthy mix of new build construction and RMI. It means we’re not over reliant on one sector. If one dips, that’s offset by another route to market,” said Mr Wilson. “Some major housebuilders saw substantial drop offs in their build programme in 2024 and you’d be a fool to think that wouldn’t have an impact. But we continued to work closely with our construction partners, and at the same time saw stronger sales to RMI and supported that with marketing and sales initiatives.” SAM services the RMI market through its strong retail network, comprising both large chain nationals and large independents. “We’ve got a lot of touch points in the UK and Ireland in all our market sectors,” said Mr Wilson. “It means we are flexible and resilient and can adapt to the way the market is going.” Like all manufacturers, SAM has had to contend with rising costs and materials prices, and it’s focused on keeping customers informed on how this may impact mouldings prices.
“There are challenges coming up and decisions to be made, so it’s vital to keep up those honest conversations with customers and maintain the trust we have, so they know if prices do rise, it’s for the right reason,” said Mr Wilson. “At the same time, we’re focused on improving what we make, how we make it and how we deliver to the marketplace. Driving efficiencies here will lessen the influence of potential inflation. We want to keep our businesses and our partners in the market as competitive as possible, so it’s a win-win for everyone.” A key development to help ensure this is
SAM’s major expansion of its warehousing capacity to increase its on-the-ground stock range.
“It’s a clear recognition that our service is dependent on availability and delivery and ensuring close and clever management of our inventories and customers’ stocks. What we’ve created is the UK’s largest range of mouldings on the ground across our three sites. It means we can offer our customer partners a huge selection of profiles and finishes and deliver
what they want when they need it. It’s all about choice.”
The development has also resulted in the capacity to service a greater range of order size, says SAM.
“Of course we can supply the bigger volumes,” said Mr Wilson. “But offering small orders is also key to market and range development. It enables customers to introduce new designs and a wider selection of profiles at low risk in order to refresh their range and give their customers something new to look at. It means they’re more likely to say ‘OK, we’ll try a bit of that’. It helps generate a new interest and vibe in the market, and foments sales, including to those builders and other traders who pop in each day to buy their products.”
The flow of new products into the range has also been maintained.
“I can’t pick one stand out new product, but more broadly what we’ve seen is customers looking for a more period aesthetic,” said Mr Wilson. “So, we’re offering a wider range of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian styles. We’ve got all the royal houses covered!” As for colour, he said, the biggest sellers remain “white, white, white and, oh yes, there’s also white”.
“White primed and fully finished white still dominate the market,” he said. “Having said that we also offer a huge diversity of other options in wrap veneers, papers and uPVC finishes and we’re constantly evolving the colour range. Greens, pinks, orange. You name it. Whatever the customer thinks of, we can get it matched.”
Another significant strategic move, says
SAM, has been development of its online operations.
“What we’ve been doing with and for our
market partners is make sure that the whole range is visible and accessible on online,” said Mr Wilson. “People looking for something new and different for their home want to research what’s available sitting at home with a cup of coffee,” he continued. “Our website is an added showroom and shop window for us and our customers. Our partners may not have the particular product on their shelves or racks, but the end customer can select it online and we can drop ship in the required volume.” As for marketing, SAM still sees in- store POS material and display aids for the merchant as important to catch the eye of the drop-in customer at the trade counter. But it has also exponentially grown its on-line communication. “We all now live and die by our smart phones, so using social media is absolutely vital for us in terms of promoting the SAM
brand and business and our products. It’s such an influential promotional and educational tool – and its potential into the future is absolutely massive,” said Mr Wilson. “We also set up online marketing campaigns each year with our major partners, which are littered with sales and promotional initiatives.” He added that the company still sees further possibilities for increasing MDF’s ‘ingress’ into the mouldings market – and that online promotion is also central to this. “There’s that subliminal marketing effect you can achieve in social media. We also use influencers, leading joiners, for instance, whose reels we post showing them using our products for interesting projects. We’re seeing the results in terms of an increasing trickle down of MDF from the major developers, where it’s a given you use it, to the jobbing builders.” SAM’s marketing also evolves through the year.
“It’s a seasonal business,” said Mr Wilson. “In the summer people are outside, laying decking, putting up fencing and landscaping the garden. It’s in the autumn through spring that they’re working indoors, and our campaigns reflect that.” TTJ asked him if predictions of a building pick-up later in 2025 from the Construction Products Association raised the company’s confidence levels.
“Of course, and there is huge pent-up demand for housing. The question is the timing of recovery. If you look at the cyclical nature of the economy, we definitely are due a resurgence but to help make sure it happens we need the government to deliver on its promises for planning reform, release of land and cutting the red tape holding back building,” said Mr Wilson. At the same time, he added, SAM is not waiting for the market turnaround to deliver further growth and development in the business. “As I said, we’re constantly examining what we make, how we present it to our partners and the market and how we make it,” said Mr Wilson. “And we’ll be making an announcement on other major advances in the business soon. In the last 18 months we’ve already taken some significant new steps forward. 2025 will see an even more substantial upgrade in terms of us as a business.” SAM will also be driven by attitude,
he said.
“No matter what, we ensure we adopt a positive attitude across the business. The worst thing you can do is be negative. People grab onto negativity very quickly and it becomes a culture.” ■
www.ttjonline.com | March/April 2025 | TTJ
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