There’s no escaping the fact that it’s been a difficult start to the year for many. Economic conditions are tough – the UK was technically in a recession in January; but almost worse than that is the fact that weather conditions have been so tough as well. The knock on effects of builders and installers not being able to get out on site because of the incessant rain are being felt all the way along the supply chain.

Sadly, we’re also now seeing signs of the usual race to the bottom on price – particularly on aluminium bifolds - which seems to characterise any kind of downturn in the UK fenestration market in a way that just doesn’t seem to happen in mainland Europe. With casualties already rising amongst retail and commercial facing businesses as margins are squeezed, it doesn’t take a huge amount of insight to recognise that this is a dangerous strategy.

Surviving and thriving in this market is not just about having deep enough pockets to literally ‘weather the storm’ though, it’s about having a long term sales and customer support strategy which is about so much more than just price.

AluK are in a really good position now to be able to help their customers navigate the market if it stays in the doldrums for a while, or if the gloom finally lifts and they see all that pent up demand being released.

Since the return of Russell Yates, Managing Director at ALUK, they been looking at ways to deliver better value so that customers can keep their hard earned margins intact. That’s everything from new single, standard and bulk buying discounts which reduce up-front costs, to faster lead times on their Elements ‘made to order’ single colours to speed up orders and make it quicker to convert an order into cash.

Russell assures customers that AluK is in this market for the long run. They obviously have strong financial backing as part of a global group, but they can also offer the kind of operational stability and reliable service that customers need to withstand whatever the future economic and weather conditions turn out to be.