By Heather Posey, Staff Writer
When Morgan and Leonne Bannister decided to open up their Budget Blinds franchise, they aimed to help customers redecorate with good service and competitive pricing–without the buyer ever having to leave the front door.
“With lifestyles becoming more hectic, customers require the most convenient services possible for home improvements,” said Morgan Bannister, owner of Budget Blinds of Long Beach.
Though Budget Blinds of Long Beach has only been operating since July 2007, the Budget Blinds unique concept of “shopping where their windows are” has been around since the early 1990s.
According to a press release, the company serves homeowners and businesses from Long Beach by offering complimentary in-home estimates and consultations, professional measuring and installation, and a wide variety of window treatments.
Budget Blinds works with leading window covering manufacturers such as Norman Shutters and Hunter Douglas and offers its own label line of window treatments, Signature Series and Select Series.
Yet through being a home-based business, Budget Blinds of Long Beach is still able to keep their prices reasonable.
“Most [Budget Blinds] franchises are home-based,” said Leonne Bannister. “Since we don’t have a showroom, it keeps the overhead low and the prices competitive.”
But showroom or not, Budget Blinds of Long Beach takes pride in its convenience and customer satisfaction of their in-home service.
“Customers are happy seeing samples at their home,” said Bannister. “They feel better [about what they are buying] because they see how it looks in their house with their furniture.”
And with a growing customer demand for such services, people agree. In the past four years, Budget Blinds, Inc. has more than doubled its size in terms of the number of franchisees, franchisee sales and franchise equity. They now have more than 1,100 franchise territories serving nearly 2,000 cities in the United States.
And Bannister can see why it’s so appealing.
“Nothing is more frustrating in a home improvement project than discovering the color isn’t right when you get the products home,” said Bannister. “We eliminate a good deal of the guesswork by bringing thousands of samples with us and exploring different ways customers can dress their windows to suit their style.”
For more information on Budget Blinds of Long Beach, call (562) 427-2703 or visit www.budgetblinds.com.
