Clearview Midlands August 2014 - Issue 153 | Page 26

INDUSTRYNEWS

Locksmiths and the glazing industry:
is the Synergy getting stronger?
As we look at these two markets, and the exhibitions that support
them, it seems impossible to ignore that they are coming together at an
alarming rate. Looking at the exhibitor lists from the FIT Show, we can see
that the biggest names from the glass and glazing - and those from the
locksmith industry - are increasingly showing their wares side by side.
market, it has in recent years had to produce
a better finished product as demanded by its
UK-based customers. The last four years of
austerity conditioned a lot of companies focus
on repairing existing - and not continually
replacing - as has been the practice in the
past.
With greater demand came the inevitable
pressure on the price of the hardware products.
In a number of cases, this led to cheaper prices,
pressure on margins and the need for the UK
suppliers to broaden their customer base.

The relevance of this is the downstream
activity of a number of the biggest supply
companies making their products available
to a much larger number of prospective
buyers. While locksmiths have always
predominately dealt with locks and safes,
now according to recent surveys – 80
percent of everything a locksmith turns out
to daily is uPVC related.
The fact that major builders’ merchants
are growing their managed services business,
and partnering with local authorities for the
supply of goods and services for the repair
and maintenance of their social housing and
housing association stock, brings the two
business models closer together.
WORKING SIDE BY SIDE

In a lot of these types of service agreements,
operatives from both uPVC repairs and
locksmiths are employed to work side by side.
Throughout the whole of the country, more
and more uPVC repair and maintenance
companies are springing up to service
this rapidly-expanding sector. When you
speak to the principals of these companies,
their customer base is predominately the
locksmith.
Most of the repair and maintenance
companies are exactly what they say. They
supply repair products to replace failing
products from the days when too much of our
window hardware came from the “land of the
dragon.” While China is still responsible for a
lot of the products sold into the double glazing

‘With greater demand
came the inevitable
pressure on the price of
the hardware products’
Gone are the days when the major players
only supplied through a distributor network.
It is much more common now for the main
hardware companies to supply minimum
amounts to much smaller outlets than they
would have in the past. The price differential is
nominal but does help to maintain margin.
ENTER THE LOCKSMITHS!

So enter the locksmiths! Having seen the
way the market had started to go, the leading
locksmith suppliers - who for a long time
had supplied the locksmith industry with
consumable products (such as TCT drills,
cylinders, dead bolts and latches etc) quickly

switched to the ever-growing demand for
Multi-Point Locks, which hitherto had been
exclusive to the glazing industry. This once
again opened a bigger market for hardware
and lock suppliers. Because of the professional
service-based element of the locksmith
industry, it was not just about price. To
maintain their integrity and provide the
service the locksmiths didn’t barter on price.
How things have changed!
What we are now seeing, as the two lines
start to merge, is one of window companies
buying from locksmith distributors and repair
companies and the reverse, locksmiths buying
from the distributors to the window industry.
For example, it i