The Custom Window Treatment Industry

According to a variety of sources, Americans spend approximately $10 billion dollars per year on window treatments! As we mention in our Top Ten, virtually every home and business is a potential customer for our products and services. The next time you are out, look around and see the windows all around you- in homes, businesses, hotels and office buildings. Every building has windows- and virtually all of them need some type of covering. For privacy and light exposure, they are a necessity versus a luxury. Prior to the current economic downturn, the market for custom window coverings has been expanding for 14 consecutive years, and this tremendous growth will continue in the future!

Fragmented and Unbranded

If someone asked you what kind of car you recommend, or what kind of computer you'd recommend, what makes or models come to mind? Now, if someone asked you who you would recommend for window treatments, what name(s) would pop out? If you're like most people, you might respond with a blank stare. That's because the window treatment industry- unlike most industries- is very fragmented with no major players. In fact, the largest retailer of window treatments is estimated to have less than a 3% of the total market!

What this means is that Gotcha Covered has a tremendous opportunity to create a national brand and grab a large share of this huge market!

Behind The Curve With Technology

The reality of the window treatment industry is that it is very low tech. Because of the 'see and touch' aspects of color, design, and texture of the fabrics used in drapes and curtains, virtually every window treatment company is limited to using product samples to explain and show their design options. While Gotcha Covered uses samples as well, our Decor Creator software allows us to take the buying experience to a whole new level! By showing the customer what the treatments will look like on their windows- presented to scale, design and color 3-dimensionally- the difference between choosing Gotcha Covered and any other vendor becomes glaring.

Another aspect of the low tech window treatment industry is the pricing, ordering and fulfillment process that our competitors have to go through. When one of our competitors visits a home to make a proposal, they have to:

• consult product manuals to determine pricing for each component (some projects have dozens or even hundreds of components)
• determine that the components all work together
• total the cost for the entire project manually
• order each component separately from the individual vendors
• track the individual orders and audit the shipments when they arrive from the various vendors

Imagine having to design and price a window treatment design this way. Now, imagine that the customer changed their mind and wanted to see another option and the associated pricing. Now, imagine that they wanted to see yet another design. And again. And again. Can you see how time-consuming this would be?

Now, compare this with using our Decor Creator software, which has a very sophisticated 'back end' that makes all of these processes happen with a few clicks of a mouse. Our system is so smart that it can price each component (and therefore the total) instantaneously. Now you can redesign all you want and get the pricing for each design in just a few seconds- not minutes or even hours. [By the way, this is the REAL secret of our software; the design flexibility and 3D display is great, but it's the back-end functionality that really makes a difference in how you operate your business]. So, now you have closed the sale and are on to your next appointment while your poor competitor is stuck in front of a frustrated customer trying to figure out how to design and price and place a simple order.