Ezra Maust
Commodity Buyer / Peoples Supply / Hyattsville, Md.
In 1979, Ezra Maust started working for Peoples Supply just outside Washington, D.C. Fifteen years later, he earned the position of commodity buyer. Times have changed his buying habits. Full trucks and railroad cars have turned into mixed loads and fill-ins. The stacks are leaner, but Maust says he still manages to uncover a few great finds.
Stocking any new products? The One Ton Bag. We have bulk sand and gravel, so we started stocking One Ton Bags we could boom off with our knuckle boom and that’s worked out well. It has our name on it, so it’s good advertising. We started selling some Roxul insulation, a batt that’s fire retardant, because of the demand [due to code].
Right now we’re special ordering all of our LVLs and we’re seriously considering getting into a stocking program, but we have to develop a place to properly store them.
Lack of sales is pretty well where we make the determination to drop a product. If it’s starting too slow, if the turns aren’t there, we start downsizing. After it’s been downsized, if we’re still not getting the turns, we eventually drop the product. In our fastener category, we slimmed that down quite extensively.
One of the biggest frustrations I have is when I’ve developed a relationship with a vendor’s rep and they move them into different territory. Then you have to get to know a new rep. Depending on the product, when you really need good negotiating on both sides, it can be more challenging.
I try and be fair. When I retire, I want all vendors to feel that I was fair with them, yet I need to be aggressive in my purchasing and stay competitive with the boxes. There are times I expect the vendor to come in with his bottom number. I don’t want to play back and forth. There are times when a vendor has really done me a favor, I’ll give them a last look, but that very seldom happens. I don’t feel comfortable with that. I feel a vendor needs to give me their bottom number straight up.
One of the main things I look for is a vendor who is willing to negotiate, understanding the complexities of being an independent in the market that we’re in, with the boxes and all that, and still understands he needs to make money for his company but we also need to stay competitive. A good sales representative needs to look out for their company but also for the independents along with their own company. A sales rep makes a fair amount of difference; it varies some what the product is.
What qualities turn you off to a vendor? Someone who is brash and arrogant.
Guardian insulation has done an extremely good job as far as support. I’ve bought from them since the late 1990s. I’ve bought them exclusively for fiberglass insulation because of the programs that they are offering. Their shows are always good and they can guarantee me a certain percentage markup over what the boxes are selling.
Merritt Goodyear
Vice President / Trinity Lumber and Building Supply / Weaverville, Calif.
For Merritt Goodyear and Trinity Lumber, purchasing can be a challenge. With a location that’s not exactly on Main Street–Weaverville is located next to a national forest in far northern California–and a diverse customer base, Goodyear has to be smart and keep a sharp eye on the products. “We’ve been able to get aggressive, because I’m a younger guy and the [competitors] are all older,” Goodyear says.
We do a lot of decks, fences, little additions, hardware, stuff like that. We do a lot of roofing. I guess [my favorite clients are] roofers; you have to have more of a personal relationship with them. I mean, plywood and lumber and all that stuff, that’s all well and good, but everybody buys that stuff. But roofers are roofers and they buy their shingles and their metals; it’s more of a specific trade.
I love the challenge of keeping track of turns and sometimes the challenge of who I’ve got to buy stuff from to get it to Weaverville in time for somebody to need it or to make sure we don’t run out. I also like keeping track of inventory, trying to keep it as low as possible with having the right products on hand and having enough of them.
A lot of the vendors that I have good relationships with, I can tell them what I want to pay for something. With some of them, I won’t even go there.
If it’s a new product, I just want to feel comfortable with the person I’m buying from. Money has something to do with it, I have to take into account what the competition has. I’ll be more inclined to jump on it if it’s something people have been asking for that nobody in town has. Or if it’s better than something somebody else in town has. There are some salesmen that have definitely made a big difference in some decisions that I’ve made.
You can always tell when somebody’s being forced to sell certain things or when a product is being pushed on them by somebody above them compared to [a pitch by] someone who truly believes in what they’re selling. There’s a big difference.
We’ve changed certain lines of stuff, but there hasn’t been one particular product that we’ve dropped. We changed our line of decking that we carry because TimberTech came out with ReliaBoard, which just sells like hotcakes because it’s cheap. I changed my vendors on my dry-mix products, I changed vendors for my composite sidings, but that’s really about it.
We recently brought in Owens Corning composite shingles, which is one of my favorite products. We get a kickback [selling] their insulation and their roofing on a program. And advertising is big for us because we’re not on the beaten path.
