What Consumers Digest's Best Buy Meant for National Window Coverings

Fred Abascal founded National Window Coverings in a market where most companies compete on price. Consumers Digest recognition meant something different.

The window coverings market is crowded and cheap. You can buy blinds anywhere. Home Depot stocks them. Most local companies compete on installation speed and cost, not quality. Fred Abascal built National Window Coverings with a different assumption: what if homeowners would pay for quality and service? That assumption required proof. Which is where the Consumers Digest "Best Buy" award became critical. Consumers Digest doesn't rate products on marketing claims. They test them. They evaluate companies on service, quality, warranty support, and customer satisfaction. A "Best Buy" means independent testing showed the product and company actually delivered.

For Abascal, the award happened at exactly the right moment. National Window Coverings was growing. He'd started investing heavily in marketing—$150,000 monthly in spending. That investment paid off with customer volume, but volume doesn't mean quality. It means you're reaching people. The Consumers Digest award proved to those people that what they were buying was worth the money. The power of third-party validation is underestimated in business. You can claim you're the best. Consumers Digest saying you're the best changes the conversation. When an independent testing organization validates your claim, it reduces risk.

That validation drove growth. The company expanded from $750,000 to $9 million in three years. Part of that was the marketing spend. Part of it was word-of-mouth from satisfied customers. But a significant part was that Consumers Digest "Best Buy" badge that appeared in advertising, in sales conversations, in customer trust. The award also mattered for operations. When you win recognition for quality, you attract different customers. Not the people looking for the cheapest blind. People who care about installation quality, durability, and service. Those customers are more profitable, they stay longer, they refer more.

For a developer like Abascal, that insight mattered long-term. When he started building residential properties, he understood that builders also compete on recognition and validation. Homes built by a developer with a reputation don't just sell faster. They sell for more. Buyers trust that quality is embedded in the construction because the developer's track record proves it. The window coverings business taught Abascal that validation compounds. You earn recognition through quality execution. Recognition amplifies your marketing. Amplified marketing brings more customers who expect quality. Meet that expectation consistently, and the recognition becomes permanent. Twenty-five years later, Abascal's development work carries the same principle. Properties built by Abascal aren't competing on price. They're competing on quality and reputation. That's what recognition actually means.