And both vary from the strategy applied at Country Lumber, a single-location, $15 million dealer in Becker, Minn., that offers its pro and retail customers a proprietary library of more than 250 house plans developed in-house over several years and customization services with a staff of one associate. “Most of the plans we sell end up being custom designed,” says Roy Kollar, the company’s designer/draftsman, who runs the program and continues to build the dealer’s plan library on his own. “Not a lot of people know that a lumberyard might have this type of service.”
If Coulter, Pearce, and others on the plan-publishing end have their way, however, that lack of awareness—especially among pros and specifically regarding stock house plan availability—will swing dramatically.
Plans for Dealers The 2003 survey of leading LBM dealers for Home Planners kicked off the plan publisher’s initial attempt to target and partner with that segment of the supply channel as a means to reach builders and developers. The effort sputtered, however, and is just now being revived, but it did produce at least one shining example of what Pearce hopes will grow the business, and that of the dealers with which eplans.com affiliates.
That model is 84 Lumber, specifically a library of house plans provided to the dealer by eplans.com that are relatively simple and affordable to build. “They’re not fancy, but they’re desirable,” says Doug Fritsch, director of 84’s corporate Builder Plan Services division (formerly 84 Homes, a name change that reflects a strategic shift from consumers to pros both in plan sales and company-wide).
What makes the affordable line of plans even more marketable is that they are offered with an options package that enables builders to modify the blueprints to suit a variety of market-driven upgrades, site conditions, and other regional preferences rather than settle for a standard stock plan.
The revenue for 84 Lumber, however, isn’t derived solely from plan sales or even making modifications (the latter is actually an expense), but instead in converting plan buyers into materials purchasers. “We sell prints to sell materials,” says Fritsch. Though most of the pros who buy plans are already 84 customers, the service creates an attractive one-stop shop for them, building loyalty to the dealer. “If we’re not taking that step [converting plan buyers], then we’re not helping the business.”
Through its plan sales program, 84 Lumber sells about 4,500 sets a year, mostly to builders, either for spec homes or on behalf of homeowners. Those customers who continue on with a materials package spend an average of $20,000 for frame materials, windows, and trim, and perhaps cabinets and other finish products, as well. “We lose a few, but not many, and those that make modifications [to the plans] are 100 percent pull-through,” he says. “If we lose that [materials] sale, we screwed up somewhere.”
Though initially affiliated only with eplans.com, and for a brief time also with Homeplans.com, 84 Lumber has expanded its house plans division and options by partnering with other plan providers to specifically appeal to builders and developers. Its Oaks Homes collection—a conglomeration of plans from Garlinghouse in Chantilly, Va., and Design Basics in Omaha, Neb.—for instance, represents larger and more complex homes offered solely as stock sets (read: no modifications, at least by the dealer). “We sell maybe 20 of those a year, but they’re big [materials] purchases,” says Fritsch, as some of the homes top 5,000 square feet. “It’s an evolution of our pro-based business, to accommodate builders with something a DIYer or owner-builder would never do.”
That evolution took yet another step forward when the dealer also aligned itself with Nelson Design Group, a residential planning and design firm in Jonesboro, Ark., that is one of an increasing number of independent architectural service providers selling plans online. In addition to broadening the dealer’s house plan offerings, the “builder-only” program includes land-use planning, neighborhood concepts (rather than simply individual home plans), and marketing and sales support materials from the design firm. “It really rounds out our program,” says Fritsch.
