May 2022
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Customer trends<br />
NEW BUYING HABITS: THE NEW NORM<br />
We may be seeing the start of a slowdown, but consumers’ buying habits have changed for<br />
good, argues Nathan Court, Sales Director at Sternfenster.<br />
The prevailing wisdom is that from March<br />
2020 onwards, after the UK entered a series<br />
of lockdowns alongside other restrictions<br />
on movement, consumer habits changed as<br />
homeowners started spending more on home<br />
improvement.<br />
Significantly, this drove demand to way above<br />
what was expected, both in terms of seasonal<br />
trends, and predicted consumer habits following<br />
a pandemic.<br />
Home improvement companies also found that<br />
homeowners were generally choosing higher<br />
value products.<br />
This was assumed to be the result of two forces:<br />
more disposable income because other spending<br />
opportunities were limited; and people were being<br />
more critical of their surroundings because they<br />
had spent so much time at home.<br />
Nathan Court, Sales Director at Sternfenster,<br />
argued that while this is largely true, it is a<br />
mistake to think that consumer buying habits<br />
simply changed overnight.<br />
Sternfenster feels that homeowners’<br />
views on aesthetics are changing<br />
“Even before the pandemic took hold, we were<br />
having a lot of success selling the StyleLine<br />
window as a high-end yet affordable flush timber<br />
sash window alternative,” he said.<br />
Nathan Court<br />
“We found – and our customers found – that<br />
unless you were selling into a conservation area,<br />
there was no difference between StyleLine and<br />
more expensive alternatives.<br />
“People were pitching their aspirations really<br />
high, but they could still get a high-end product<br />
for their budget. Critically, though, they weren’t<br />
being driven solely on price.”<br />
StyleLine was designed and developed by<br />
Sternfenster in 2015, by capitalising on the near<br />
invisible welds produced by the Graf Welder.<br />
The modern welding process hides the excess<br />
PVCU inside the window frame, which leaves a<br />
corner that requires no cleaning.<br />
The benefits of this process are most keenly felt<br />
on foiled product – which make up a significant<br />
portion of Sternfenster’s offering – where the<br />
finish to the weld is exceptionally clean and<br />
requires no touching up.<br />
Continued on page 68<br />
66 T I MAY <strong>2022</strong> PRACTICAL CONTENT FOR THE GLAZING INSTALLER & HOME IMPROVEMENT SPECIALIST
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