Dancing the two-step again
Hancock’s stores can order hardlines, and each location has a buyer who works directly with Portland, Maine-based distributor Emery Waterhouse, from which the dealer’s purchases have increased in recent years, Chapais says.
Relying more on distributors helped Guy C. Lee lower its in-stock composite decking inventory to $20,000, from $70,000 a few years earlier. The same is true of LVL products, says Guy C. Lee’s Strickland. “Why carry $50,000 in inventory when Diamond Hill Plywood [its distributor] is sending a truck here every day?” he says.
Distributors and buying groups are playing bigger roles for some companies. Plummer cites the buying group Do it Best, as well as distributors Amerhart, Green Bay, Wis.; BlueLinx, Atlanta; and Forest Product Distributors, Rapid City, S.D.; as supply-chain sources R.P. Lumber turns to regularly.
Rob Crawford, general manager at Buck Lumber in Charleston, S.C., says his company relies heavily on Wayne, Pa.-based buying group Lumbermens Merchandising Corporation (LMC).
Zarsky Lumber in Texas bills 90% of the commodities purchased by its 10 yards through LMC, says Clay Chambless, who manages the yard at Zarsky’s headquarters in Victoria, Texas. Zarsky also buys through distributors Orgill, Memphis, Tenn., and Handy Hardware, Houston, and lets its fastener and millwork vendors handle the reordering of their respective products.
“We give them a blank P.O. and let them go to town,” Chambless says.
Stine Lumber’s hardlines buyers work with the co-op Ace Hardware, even though Stine doesn’t fly Ace’s banner.
Building a Better Buyer
Buyers need a sixth sense to know which emerging products are worth stocking.
The position of “buyer” is difficult to fill because the right person “has to understand the company he works for, as well as the need of the sales staff and customers,” argues Myron Andersen, president of Builders in Kearney, Neb.
What makes a good buyer depends on the situation and company. But experience is a starting point for most dealers, especially product knowledge that informs buyers about the quality of wood among mills.
The Building Center in Pineville, N.C., recently promoted one of its employees to the position of commodities buyer. With 20-plus years in the business, the new buyer “understands our processes and product mix,” says company president Skip Norris. “We also needed someone who is intuitive about commodities and market trends,” he adds.
Denver-based ProBuild’s highly centralized forest products division has four category managers, including Steve LaValley, who buys SPF lumber. LaValley’s background includes three years with ProBuild, 13 years as a lumber broker, five years with a distributor, “and I ‘grew up’ at a lumberyard,” he says.
Dealers say their purchasing departments rarely push new products, relying instead on their stores and sales teams to respond to customer requests and to gauge when demand merits a stocking program. But buyers still need a sixth sense to detect trends and know the right time to bring in something new.
“Everyone is looking to outguess the American public,” says Robert Plummer, president and owner of R.P. Lumber in Edwardsville, Ill. Buyers continue to be dealers’ front line in determining whether an item is worth carrying or “just something a supplier is pushing because it’s overstocked.”
