Today Laminate door skin (DSK) is loosing its sales growth numbers as a product. Today ‘the dying Laminate door skin product’, which was once considered fastgrowing category, has poor numbers. Once the industry offered Special catalogues of cut-paste designs, metallic mix match, digital range, etc and various innovative designs for door size 7X3.25 ft sheets is now staring blank. The home buyers, contractors preferred this product being maintenance free and charming.
During 2010-12, DSK was a profit led good product in laminate basket along with 1 mm thickness. Until 2019, with availability of more than 300 door skin catalogues in different brands' names in the market; it registered a monthly demand for 2.5 million sheets. But after that it started loosing the grip, Now the question is ‘who killed the door skin laminate product? This is an interesting case study and this would be learning for the laminate industry. The finding is known to everyone but to mention in brief, let’s check some of these reasons....
• Product quality dropped drastically
• Initially, thickness was 1 mm, then 0.92, then 0.85 and now around 0.8 mm
• Printed decor (base) paper quality dropped
• Prices fell rapidly, distributor stock devalued and now equivalent to liner
• Became a very Low margin products
• Lack in Design Innovation
• Indian Paper printers lost their interest
• DSK sales shifted to 0.8 mm folder of 8x4
• Offering Horizontal designs in 0.8 mm and 0.92 mm range
The lessons are – Maintain the standard of a product quality, use genuine quality raw materials, keep design innovation, and retain proper thickness & process. If anyone chose short cut, the journey becomes short, and the same has happened with Door Skin laminates products.
This, December, 2022 issue is packed with buddle of news reports related to recent market scenario in different products categories such as plywood, decorative veneers, laminates, MDF, Particle Boards, etc, financial results and announcement from organised companies, products launches, showrooms opening and dealer’s get-together. The reports from exhibitions, showcases, introduction of new products etc are also covered in this issue.
Rajiv Parashar
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