Australian Made

Australian Owned

Beware The Salesman

I have been in the roller shutter business for over 15 years. In that time I've seen the industry grow and develop in some good ways and unfortunately some bad.

Australian Made

At one time we really only had a few choices where we purchased our shutter components, mainly Crochi (Italy) and Hereol (Germany). Today shutter components can be sourced from all over the world including China, some good, some not so good. We mainly use Ozroll products, a Company started here in Australia that now exports shutters and components world wide.

When is Australian made not really Australian Made. Some companies realise we as Australians want to support our Local industry so a common practice is to import the products then cut them to size here , Hardly Australian Made in my eyes, its a bit like importing a tin of peaches then printing the label here in Australia and stamping it Australian Made. Obviously many shutter components are manufactured overseas but for it to be a true Australian Made and Manufactured product the main components should not be imported.

The Sales Con

Some Companies and sales people will use whatever tactic they can to get your business. A common one is to offer display home prices where they offer huge discounts to put a sign out the front of your house etc.

This starts at the office where you are asked to have both Husband and Wife home. The sales man then goes through the spiel and gives you a hugely inflated price, lets face it not many people know how much a shutter costs before they get a quote. The salesman then rings his boss and gets a slightly better price. This can go on for several phone calls until they find a price you jump at, normally 1000's of dollars cheaper even Half the Price, of course you must sign today. Unfortunately the price you accept is in many cases, much more expensive than companies like Newcastle Shutters. There's still a few of us non high pressure guys around. Not all companies who use signs are high pressure but many are, beware.Products and Quality

As a home owner its pretty hard for you to know what is a quality product and what is not and how well it will perform for you. Each sales man will tell you their product is the best because of X or Y and in many cases I'm the same. You really are at the mercy of how well the salesman can sell THAT product. Many sales people will try to rubbish their opposition or tell you x product is bad or ours is thicker or Y company is .......etc. I try to eliminate this as much as possible buy showing you samples of the major suppliers products side by side, I have nothing to hide. There is still only 3 or 4 main suppliers that many companies buy from then cut to size in their own factory. I find no need to rubbish companies, I would rather show the differences between products and let you decide.

Product Performance

A salesman can claim their product will do pretty much anything, how would you know if they are being truthful, you don't. When I describe the benefits of shutters or how they perform I try to use everyday examples not salesman speak, real life scenarios if you like. For example most Suppliers will tell people shutters stop up to 50% of noise so that's what the salesman will tell you, unfortunately no shutter stops 50% of the noise by decibel, its is perceived noise. I have done my own real world tests and instead of telling a customer 50% I found if you open you window and listen to the noise then close the window and listen to the noise reduction you will get similar reduction again from a shutter of any brand or supplier, providing it is fitted correctly. A bit of TRUTH in advising people often saves heart ache later.

Using other Companies Names

This is a huge bug bear of mine and I think its fairly Un Australian. I have owned Newcastle Shutters for over 10 years and have had Newcastleshutters.com and newcastleshutters.com.au for many years. Now it seems some less scrupulous companies are getting involved with the internet. They are trying to get their domain name as close to Newcastle Shutters as they can, unfortunately there is no law against this, even though I have paid my money to the government to have a legally registered business. None of these .com.au names can be registered as Australian Business Names because they are too close to mine yet these companies get around this because no such rule applies on the net. It seems some are now trying to trick people into thinking they are Newcastle Shutters or in some way attached to Newcastle Shutters, things like taking off the s making it newcastleshutter or shuttersnewcastle, newcastlerollershutters, newcastlewindowshutters etc, none of these are us. I simply can not afford to register every variant of Newcastle Shutters nor do I wish to. I guess its each person to their own but it does seem a bit of trickery. Why would any company NOT be proud to use their own companies registered name on the internet instead of trying to TRICK people. Think long and hard before you deal with tricky companies, trickery in advertising often leads to trickery with the customer, YOU.