Hank Bockus
Vice President and Buyer / Gordon White Lumber / Oklahoma City
Hank Bockus’ father banished him from the family business for a year after college. He had to learn the ropes at another yard, prove it’s what he wanted without being the son of the boss. In 2004, Bockus went back to the family business, buying lumber and plywood for Gordon White Lumber’s six stores. Bockus says he doesn’t play games with reps because that’s not how he learned the lumber business.
Has buying changed? We used to employ what I’d call the “shed” technique of ordering. If you walked outside and could see the top of the shed, you didn’t have enough material. You could almost always predict the market. When the winter slowdown would come you could put orders in heavy for spring and the price would appreciate. That hasn’t happened in 10 years; now the prices tend to go up right before the winter mills shut down. [I used to] take projections for what I needed based on sales a year ago, but when the slowdowns occurred, I couldn’t.
I’m big into going to a vendor and just checking on what they have on close outs, what they want to move and be out of, that I might make some money on and advertise as a loss leader-type item. That’s important in helping us gain some market share.
I don’t jump into the market as the first person to stock something. I let the dust settle and see which products are left standing. We started stocking LP SmartSide trim and siding probably 10 years ago, just a few pieces at a time. In 2006 and 2007 we started bumping up our purchases and now we’re stocking it across all of our stores. I have been slow to add SKUs because I want to see how it’s going to perform. We’ve rarely ever taken a new SKU and loaded up on it at each store.
The big talk around here is LEED certified green. We haven’t really jumped on the bandwagon. There are a lot of trendy items that came out when this green movement first happened. They’ve come and gone, and now the stuff that’s here to stay is surfacing.
Favorite products? In Oklahoma, we are one of the few lumber companies that stock dry utility Douglas fir. With green SPF, everybody knows the price of that and that’s what everybody’s selling around here, so I can have a little higher margins because I just say, “We’re keeping different products.” Another would be 3×12 oak that’s used in oil field applications, so it’s very rare. We’re one of the only few companies that keeps that in stock and it has done well for us.
John Daingerfield
Buyer / Jaeger Lumber / Union, N.J.
Studying sales tactics convinced John Daingerfield the best thing about being a buyer is the power to choose the outcome. “I don’t mind being responsible,” he says. “I like making choices. The evil way to say it is that I’m a control freak, and that fits in perfect with this job.”
You’re never going to hit the home run bringing in that brand-new, hot thing. Every time you swing for the fences you’ll also get a chance of striking out. We have no problem hitting singles and doubles and making a nice living; we’ll leave the innovating to someone else. The owner, Lowell Jaeger, told me years ago: “Look, if I want to gamble, I’ll go down to Atlantic City.”
If you can do the job with $6 million worth of inventory and you’re carrying $8 million, you’re doing a bad job. As a percentage of our sales, our turns went down, and yet the perception from the guys who work in the yards was “Oh, we don’t have enough inventory,” because they’re used to seeing things stacked up high. If we were turning a category 12 times in good times and we’re turning it eight times now, we’ve got 50% more inventory. I don’t care if the stacks are half the size they used to be.
I like to buy “quiet products.” By that I mean, when I buy it I don’t want to talk about it anymore, because if I have to talk about it something went wrong. If one of my guys calls me it’s because the delivery got screwed up, didn’t come in on time, went to the wrong yard, or a piece came in damaged. Or it gets to a customer and we have to take it back because there’s something wrong. Those are products you talk about.
If I need that truck tomorrow, you can’t really talk price at that point.
Sometimes you’re the hammer, sometimes you’re the nail. If you’ve only got one or two suppliers, you can’t keep pounding on them all the time, they got to stay around too. We need them as much as they need us. A couple years ago I had a deal with a supplier that I thought was absolutely too good to be true. We had set up this deal and I couldn’t believe the deal was as good as I got. Six months later he went out of business.
Favorite product? Phoenix Railing. We make good margin, the product is excellent, the service is tremendous, and our customers love it. Phoenix is a small, family-run local operation, nice people. I don’t ever remember having a problem with Phoenix rail, or they fixed it so quick I never found out about it. For the first couple of years, Dick’s daughters did the deliveries in our yard and anytime you have a young woman in a lumberyard, she tends to draw a lot of attention. We had customers who used to help unload their truck.
