FEATURE Story By David Koenig
MOST DECK builders aren’t shopping every job—they have a favorite lumberyard they turn to whom they trust to give them a fair price. There are more important criteria for selecting their favorite.
What deck builders want from their go-to supplier Priorities change in the age of COVID T “Availability is the best ability” has never been more true for decking suppliers, at least according to their builder customers looking to navigate recent material shortages. aving what a deck builder wants in stock—or being able to quickly get it—has become the most important criteria in selecting a supplier, according to a recent Instagram poll of deck builders by our sister publication Deck Specialist. Availability was deemed most important by . % of respondents, besting Service ( 0. %), Selection (1 %), Price (11. %), and Product nowledge ( 0. %). Other factors, including Location, Credit Terms, and Loyalty Program, totaled 0. %. “ uring CO I , availability is now 1 and all else is secondary as we just can’t get product,” said Pete Ciraldi, Professional Building Services, Salem, N. . “We spend four
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times the administrative time trying to acquire stock, usually have to get from multiple suppliers, and they are short on stock, as well.” The change is a recent one, according to Ciraldi. “PreCO I , we never had availability issues we weren’t able to work around, so we would always look for multiple factors. Never just one. Price and service were equal in our book—it didn’t matter how cheap the products were if they came in damaged, wrong, short count, etc. If I had to send a truck and an hourly employee, the lost additional productivity of pulling someone off the crew would be a chaser. Because of the volume we would do during our busy season, we’d use multiple suppliers that carried a wide selection instead of just one with a larger footprint. Most of the larger companies do not stock all product lines and would have to bring things in anyway.” Building-Products.com
