Tiling prices are often determined by their style, size, and the difficulty of the design, which can lead to costs ranging quite drastically from one type to another. This can make manually pricing your products a more tricky process, and can impact manufacturing requirements, especially when it comes to determining what is going to be popular, what might be a limited trend, and what is likely to be a consistent staple that supports your business going forward. In this article, we will have a brief look at the current state of the tiling manufacturing industry, before looking at how you can solve some of the challenges you might face if you are manually pricing your tiles.
What does the tile manufacturing industry look like in 2024?
There are multiple aspects of the tile manufacturing industry, depending on what material the tiles are being made from. For the purpose of this article, we will look at: ceramic tiles (including Vitrified tiles), natural stone tiles, and eco-friendly tiles.
According to Industry Research's insight report (2024) for the natural stone and ceramic industry, the market was valued at $473117.58 (USD), and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.22% to $641980.01 by 2031.
Ijaro International identifies the top 10 ceramic tile manufacturers (globally) as:
Mohawk Industries
Porcelanosa Grupo
Kajaria Ceramic
Lamosa Group
RAK Ceramics
STN Ceramica
Grupo Cedasa
Carmelo Fior
National Ceramics Industries Australia
SCG Ceramics
According to Ramirro, China is currently the world's largest tile producer and exporter, with other emerging markets in Brazil, India, etc. expanding their presence in the global tile market.
The Vitrified tile market has been seeing fluctuating growth, but is expected to see a rebound of growth in the later half of 2024 as improvements in economies, and alleviation of supply chain issues are resolved.
Eco-friendly tiles (those that are produced with sustainable manufacturing processes and / or materials), have seen a robust growth in recent years, largely driven by an increasing consumer demand for sustainable tiling options, both in residential and commercial constructions.
What are the challenges of manual pricing in the tiling manufacturing industry?
If you have a smaller company, or a limited range of products, manual pricing may seem the most appropriate choice, but there are some areas of difficulty that you might not have considered, and need to evaluate alongside the ways in which you can make sales proposals easier.
Some of the key issues that you might see when manually pricing your tiles as you manufacture them may include:
Time restraints: Manual pricing involves a lot of time, resources, effort, and can prove problematic if updates are not completed when they are required, or if the update does not flow through your system as expected.
Creating multiple products for variations: Even with a limited selection, if a customer requests a specific change or alteration in design / material / size, this can lead to multiple new entries needing creating, and ultimately see new entries into your system, which takes time, resources, and requires ensuring that your system correctly picks up and acknowledges the new products.
Applying bundle pricing or discounting: It is likely that your customers will want multiple items and often multiple styles. If you are offering bundle prices, or applying discounts to a certain number of purchases, then your pricing needs to reflect this, and your team member doing the manual pricing must make sure to apply this correctly. If they do not have access to the latest information, any communication that promises certain rates, or other applicable materials, this can cause serious issues and could result in a loss of customer confidence, or in the worst case, a loss of a customer. This makes software like TEB Apps useful for businesses as you have the ability to set discount rules, and can easily bundle items together. This makes software like TEB Apps useful for businesses as you have the ability to set discount rules, and can easily bundle items together.
Tracking previous pricing or offers: When setting the price for your products, whether it is a new product or a promotion that focuses on an existing range, you need to know what your pricing has been previously, what offers you have applied (and this can have legal ramifications when it comes to the procedure for offering a sale price), and what the most successful sweet-spot price has been so you can fix a price that covers your costs, meets your profit goals, and is agreeable with your customers.
Updating existing stock with new prices or offers: Prices are going to fluctuate across the year, and you need to be able to update the price of your stock in a way that takes minimum time and effort, does not leave customers viewing similar products or the same product in different variations (colour / style / etc.) with differing prices (unless done purposefully). When your customers look at the products you are manufacturing, they need to know the price is accurate, that it is affordable for their budget, and will be available in the quantities they need for their own goals. For example, if you are running an offer on remainder stock, then it is vital that this is mentioned clearly, and orders are halted once the number of goods has been reached.
What sort of software can help your tile manufacturing company with pricing?
In order for your tiling manufacturing business to do its best, you need to have winning sales habits, and the right tools for the job.
Some of the main areas you must be looking at, or updating to more efficient options, include:
Quote templates (drag-and-drop are generally the most easy to operate)
Quote workflow and approval processes
Order automation and product management
Automation of returns, refunds, and cancellations
Bulk data upload
Customisable product pricing
Payment integration
Streamline your pricing with TEB Apps
TEB Apps is a powerful business automation tool that streamlines your sales funnel from the first point of contact to closing the sale. Tiling manufacturing businesses are using TEB Apps to drive efficiency with their quote creations and proposals with automated quote creation from custom quote templates, in-depth proposal tracking and streamlined pricing processes. TEB Apps gives you four different pricing options:
Specification pricing - Set specific pricing criteria based on the grades of your raw materials
Volumetric pricing – Include multiple of the same item in a quote
Manual pricing – Manually price your item
Bundle pricing – Bundle multiple different items together
You can also set pre-determined minimum and maximum discounts on items to ensure your team follows the right guidelines when closing a sale. You can handle all of your quotes in one easy-to-use program, that shows you at a glance what you have set for each product in your range, allowing you to spend your time closing deals and driving business revenue. Book a demo today and step into the future of automation.
