Here's the very short answer ... I bloody well hope not !
All products have lifespans you might think
78 rpm records, LP records, Cassette tapes, CDs, MP3 players, Streaming services.... and you'd be right. The selling of sound was transformed in each technological era by the current technology... some might say CDs, and they'd be right too, that CDs were the highest quality music reproduction. Industry decided that price and convenience should be paramount.
The window & door market is similar in that
product technologies have evolved over time. Leaded panes, timber windows,aluminium windows, and then PVC-u and latterly hybrid frames. This evolution took centuries not decades.
A hole is a hole and someone wants to fill it cheaply.That leads us to where we are today, are aluminium bifold prices spiralling inescapably downward? See the IMG above I came across that the other day on my drive. That's when the Blyweert family owned what was later to become ALuk in 2016. It was a good bifold door, it had a copyright-protected push button handle on the slave door,that occasionally broke. The price? of a 3 pane bifold is being advertised at £1230+vat unglazed excluding cill. I'd be delighted to be charging that today some 11 years later of compounded inflation it would actually be £1741 +vat for the same three-pane aluminium bifold.
There's a rumour probably not wrong that there's a firm in west London today who will charge you about £800 for the same three-pane aluminium bifold
The double-glazing industry has a fantastic track record of ripping the prices and margins of most products to shreds. Remember the adverts in the 1990s, the ones that promised 7 pvc-u windows and two doors fitted for £1495 (max of three openers) It became a suicidal race to outdo each other in the slashing headline price. In fairness, it was just to get the phone to ring and a dem. Then the salesman had to explain why the offer was largely bullshit and then batted prices for the job in line with the rest of the local market pricing.
Are aluminium Bifolds going the same way? I think not as look at the price of a houseful of pvc-u windows now using the bank of Englands inflation checker
it would be £2000. The reality is the price today is more like £5000- £10000. The reason that bifolding doors are currently suffering price deflation, is simple supply and demand economics in that price reduces inline with reduced demand.The aluminium bifold door market is down IMO by about 20% compared to 2022. If you look at the 'wonder' product of the 1980's the inline sliding pvcu patio door they are still popular 40 years later.
How low will aluminium bifold prices actually go ?
I can tell you this but only if you email your bifold quote to sales@armstrongindustries.co.uk
Bifold prices are not on a death spiral and they'll be around for decades or until someone else builds a better mouse trap
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