COMPETITIVE Intelligence By Carla Waldemar
FIRST CLASS: South Carolina’s Southern Lumber & Millwork recently updated its door & window showroom.
Southern comfort
obody thought about lumber in the beginning. Back in 1940, Herman Albrecht Jr., a vocational school shop instructor, used his backyard garage as a workshop for woodworking commissions from friends and neighbors. A year later he’d run out of space and took over a warehouse on King Street in Charleston, S.C.’s historic downtown. Here he added 2x4s and such, to satisfy customers’ requests. Those bits and pieces of lumber grew to require storage in neighboring warehouses throughout downtown, spurring Herman to purchase seven acres in 1945 and build what grew into a cluster of buildings to house the robust outfit which still reigns right there today. Fast forward to 2009, when “the business went in the opposite direction,” recalls his grandson, Thad Shuler, who today serves as president of what’s mushroomed into Southern Lumber & Millwork Corp. “It got into framing— just in time for the recession,” he laughs. “This provided
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the opportunity at the front end [of construction], where millwork, at the back end, was harder to sell.” Thus, “a chance to compete for the larger portion of a home.” A window and door shop was added in 2009, “after our framing adventure,” Thad recounts. “At that time, Stock Lumber was closing several of its locations, so their rep came to us with the idea—and thank God we listened.” (Another laugh) “We teamed up with Andersen and Marvin and some vinyl window lines, and now this niche represents 30% of our total sales. We’ve been two times Andersen’s Dealer of the Year, and our Marvin sales tripled last year.” Which called for a brand-new millwork showroom. “We work very hard with architects as well as builders, so, with the coronavirus, many of them are working from home, and this new building also offers them conference rooms where they can bring their clients. Our customers are 95% pros, building new custom homes and working in the remodeling market, which currently is very, very strong. “It also sets us apart from the competition—which is terrible, terrible, terrible! Too much! Lots of chains, plus three or four independents.” But demand keeps growing, too. “People keep moving into Charleston in big numbers from California, Ohio, wherever, because the cost of living is much lower here; you can have a far nicer house for your money.” So contractors are scrambling, and Southern knows that their time is money. “They love our quality, our service, our vendors. Plus, pick-up time for them is only about five minutes. We’ll have will-call on the drive-thru rack within an hour, which has been instrumental in 85% of sales from back of truck. Our OTIF [on time, in full] record is 98%,” Thad has earned a right to brag. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the Building-Products.com
