FEATURE STORY LBM dealers retain valuable changes from COVID

DEALERS RETAIN VALUABLE CHANGES FROM COVID

------------ BY DAVID KOENIG

FOR THE MAJORITY of communities, the sudden changes made necessary to function on a daily basis amid a pandemic are becoming a thing of the past. Most of the hassles and true hardships—wildly fluctuating prices, product shortages, the constant gloom of exposure to illness, mandatory masking, and countless other emergency procedures—have mostly worked themselves out of the system.

Yet suddenly having to confront COVID taught many dealers how to run their business better. New procedures, initially thought temporarily, have become permanent.

Inventory & Purchasing

“The primary sticking point during COVID which remains the same today is the acute attention to inventory,” William Crosby, manager of County Building Center, Madill, Ok. “Whether being proactive on particular items and their sensitivity to supply chain disruptions or the extreme price volatility. Everyone in our industry became well aware in knowing where the markets were and where they could go in the future. You have no desire to find yourself with too much product on a high market, being there is little chance to ‘average down’ and remain competitive. However, it is also costly to be without product. Finding the balance is a subject everyone has on the forefront of the thought process.”

Lummus Supply, Atlanta, Ga., similarly shook up how it bought product. “We are doing a better job with our purchasing by not becoming so dependent on one source for certain products,” said president/CEO Will Lummus. “We have learned to start using multiple sources to help us with supply chain and allocation issues in the future.”

As a result of supply bottlenecks and elongated re-supply times, Lumbery, Cape Elizabeth, Me., has been forced to order in bulk six to eight months in advance. That’s necessitated renting a separate warehouse to store the bulk orders, purchasing an additional forklift, and preparing to upgrade its small yard to accommodate a larger inventory.

“Our capital and operational costs have increased while our liquidity has decreased, forcing us to decrease staffing and increase prices,” lamented Mike Friedland. “The one benefit is that contractors are finding it difficult to find the specialty items that we stock in bulk due to the pronounced lag times, most notably white cedar, therefore we, at times, are the only option.”

Communication

Retailers were forced to communicate more directly and more frequently with staff and the public—and saw lasting benefits. “COVID taught us to communicate better not only with our customers, but also within our orga-

nization,” Lummus said. “We have implemented many new policies that are based on communication which has made us a better company today. It has also become one of our five core values.”

Likewise, noted Jonathan Ramsey, general manager for Beatty Lumber & Millwork, Upper Darby, Pa.: “With customer interaction limited during COVID, we called all those customers that had a delivery of material the very next day to check up and make sure everything went smoothly. We have continued that practice. It allows us to identify any issues that need to be addressed. Ninetynine percent of the feedback from these calls is positive, so I find myself giving those team members involved in the delivery a “pat on the back,” which goes a long way in building a positive environment.”

Companies hesitant to adopt new tools, like Zoom, received a crash course that continues to pay benefits. Katherine Cornelius, marketing director for TAL Holdings, Vancouver, Wa., noted, “The only thing that has had a lasting impact is our adoption of, and now standard-practice use of, Microsoft Teams as a collaboration and information sharing platform. Prior to the pandemic, we had done virtually no video conferencing and had a poor information sharing network beyond email. Through the pandemic, we were forced to adopt the software platform to continue to communicate and function. The forced adoption spurred our embrace of Teams so that it is now woven through the fabric of almost everything we do these days.”

Staff from Big Creek Lumber’s main office in Davenport, Ca., physically travels less to its branches throughout Northern California. A growing percentage of interactions with staff, customers and vendors is no longer in-person. There are more remote/virtual meetings, more webinars, and more virtual conferences, reducing travel expenses and increasing frequency. Virtual meeting check-ins are now held regularly, companywide.

Health & Safety

Stine Lumber, Sulphur, La., decided to keep up the Plexiglass partitions that protect clerks at all of its checkout stations. The dealer has also stepped up cleaning with antibacterial products beyond what it had preCOVID, according to Tim Stine.

Meanwhile, at Beatty Lumber, said Ramsey, “we have installed automatic soap dispensers and automatic antibacterial stations in the restrooms and strategically located throughout the office/retail store area. We have also displayed framed documents that tell the person reading how and why washing your hands, and using antibacterial lotion is important.”

At Big Creek’s administration office and wholesale/ sawmill, according to Michelle Webb, “Aside from the various health/social distancing protocols that are still in place, one outcome is that in attempting to socially distance as many office personnel as possible, we had to come up with systems and the technology that allowed employees to work effectively from home. We also started using and continue to use scanned and/or text messaged photos of various types of paperwork/information between our shipping yard and admin or home offices.”

LUMBER and hardware retailers instituted numerous changes to operate during the pandemic, some of which have outlasted the pandemic.

Not every dealer, however, was faced with rolling back a ton of temporary changes. Joel Jumper, owner of Coshocton Lumber Co., Coshocton, Oh., tried to keep changes minor and few. “When the pandemic started, I wanted to try and not make changes in the business,” he said. “We worked to keep things ‘normal’ like the pre-pandemic days. We worked hard to provide the same service and products to our customers. So as the situation eased, we just fell back into our normal world. I honestly thought I would be changing procedures, product, etc. We had enough going on during those times. We didn’t need me reinventing the wheel.” BP