1. Why is the Quartz shower not selling?
The product is truly innovative – for customers it provides efficient and reliable water pressure and temperature, it has easy and stylish “one touch” control and it is easy for plumbers to install it – it takes only half a day. Besides that Quartz opens new possibilities because now Aqualisa can launch additional products such as Body Jet and remote control for showers. So the product should not be the reason why the shower is not selling. Quartz is just what customers and plumbers are looking for.
The price of Quartz is higher than price of other product, however, I do not think that it is too high because the product is very innovative and Aqualisa it the only company that is selling it. An innovative premium product should be more expensive than others. Due to the higher price the product is not attractive to developers who are price sensitive and look for less expensive products and for DIY market as well because Do-it-yourselfers are usually looking for cheap products. If they were able to pay more they could also pay plumbers to install it. So I think that the price is the reason why Quartz is not selling in developer and DIY markets.
Quartz seemed to be selling well in Showrooms where mostly consumers from premium segment tended to shop. This means that the company had problems with attracting customers in the standard price and value segments. 73% of customers (mixed shower market) rely on plumbers to select a product for them. 54% of all showers were installed by plumbers. However, due to the negative past experience plumbers were usually wary of innovations, particularly any innovation involving electronics. Besides that they were reluctant to switch brands because unfamiliar products could present unknown performance problems and a bungled installation often required a second visit, paid for out of the plumber’s pocket. Plumbers simply did not advise their customers to buy Quartz shower, which, in my...