GardenStructure.com seems to be the king of all deck companies on line.
Archadeck with multi-million dollar advertising budget gets less than 1/2 of the traffic to our main site. That doesn't include blog or portfolio site.
Below is an estimation by a company that specializes in traffic ranking. They take search engine stats, toolbar information and other sources to estimate traffic. They are about 75% off in our case, so lets just assume they are 75% conservative in their numbers for everyone else too. *
To see all the estimated stats from site analytics.And... Hickory Dickory Decks--advertised as the #2 deck company in the world... 1/10 our traffic.
80% of our locations have not had time to do a home show in the past 2 years. We are better off servicing the leads we have rather than chasing more. We just don't need the extra marketing with traffic like this.
For more information click Deck Builder Group or call Lawrence Winterburn 888 293 8938
L
*Our actual server based stats tell us that the main site peaks at over 100,000 unique visits per month.
6 comments:
Thanks For the Kind Words Mr. Wizard--
However we know that trex isn't actually a deck company (they don't build decks for people anywhere), and it looks like they may not be around very long.
Trex makes composite decking--bad composite decking. It breaks out in mold spots and falls apart of late. Their stock has dropped from about $40.00 nearly 4 years ago to $7 today due to law suits and a lack of market reputation for dealing equitably with clients. We're going to look a little closer at the Trex Warranty Soon, I've been trying to keep things as positive as I can! Just not much positive on the composite front of late.
BTW that traffic calculater is conservative in our case. Our combined 2 sites will likely average over 100,000 uniques a month.
Lawrence,
Indeed, Trex does not install deck directly and I have heard much about their defect issue. I have been trying to find out what installers are doing when their customers demand replacement - obviousely Trex does not pay labor to replace defective product. According to Trex, all of the bad product came from the Nevada plant which is now closed - its been difficult getting good information about this from customers or installers, Im sure you are hearing a lot about this from installers who have used the product. I am interested to learn much more.
Thanks,
The Fence Wizard
“I have been trying to find out what installers are doing when their customers demand replacement - obviously Trex does not pay labor to replace defective product.”
None of our people will install it—I’ve advised them to steer clear until these mold issues are dealt with. (Looks like they haven’t bothered). We have had a few of their customers send photos of Trex products that were infested in mold. The folks I have talked to with the company tell me that mold is not a warranty issue—it is excluded from the warrantee. The failures resultant from that plant had more to do with disintegration (flaking) of the decking.
To date I have had about 10 calls from disgruntled Trex clients. In years previous they make the client sign a non-disclosure. I get the call before they sign so that they can get the check.
“I have been trying to find out what installers are doing when their customers demand replacement - obviously Trex does not pay labor to replace defective product. “
You are correct—Trex will not cover installation or demolition labor.
This means that any contractor that has to supply labor for free (if they don’t have a tight contract), will never do it again—because they will never install it again.
If they have a tight contract (like ours), it will exclude any composite products from installation warrantee since we will normally work hard to talk them out of using the product. It’s simply not our place to offer a materials warrantee on top of theirs.
Being put in the position after we build a gorgeous deck explaining to the unhappy client why we shouldn’t have to build it for free under warranty. It puts us in an adversarial position with the customer that was initially happy with our work. Thus—why we don’t use composite. We are simply building our reputation—one deck at a time.
You know that many of the photos in their deck ads are just computer generated right?
Lawrence,
Thank you for all of that information from the front lines, I will be writing and posting another article regarding the TREX debacle soon. Everything I have learned about TREX decking points to one thing - I would not want to distribute or install their product under any circumstance. It may be a great way to recycle waste plastic - but customers and installers simply can't get hooked into installing product that has a terrible track record of product failure. So far, I cannot get any of my questions answered directly from TREX - as you said earlier, it is unclear if the company will continue much longer.
With your approval I will use your first person account in my next article. Thank you and Happy New Year!
-The World Famous Fence Wizard.
Good Luck with the article and keep in mind I don't have any input or feedback for you regarding installed Trex--since we don't use it.
Send me a quick email with any quotes you want to use...and I will offer a blessing or further clarifications once I read them.
Most of the information I can impart is second hand-
I don't use the stuff from fear, however I want to quantify this carefully.
I only associate my company with products that can prove durability and honor their warranty.
If I were to have a contractor that garnered 3 complaints in a 12 month period their license would be terminated.
We will not offer our 5 year workmanship warranty on any composites without seeing jobs more than 3 years of age that are still presentable.
We have received complaints with accompanied photos about Trex and I have seen their failed products personally. They all appeared to have similar troubles.
L
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