Changes for the Better in the Lumber Business

By Stephen Westover Secretary, San Gabriel Valley Lumbermen's Club

I would just like to comtnent on a portion of the Editorial Ramblings of the June lst issue of The California Lumber Merchant, rvherein you predict that the "Hellacious conditions that prevail here" in the lumber business will not always contintte.

Reviewing the changes for the better brought about in the last trvo years by earnest, constructive attempts of group associations to standardize the merchandi'qing of the products they handle, you rvill find a very definite forward movement.

The adoption of American Standard grades and sizes, a uniform retail price list in conjunction with accepted Standard Estimating practices. that are in use in every Association in the South, are some of the accomplishments that have done much to reduce the hazards of individual operation.

It has been said-and rightly so-times without number, that the so-called independent non-co-operative lumber yard is a relic of the dark ages.

Competitive ideas are changing, the newer and more severe competition is between basic industries, and not between members of one particular industry.

For some unaccountable reason the retail lumber mer- chant has lagged behind other retail businesses in the acceptance of modern merchandising ideas, but the interchange of thought brought about by association work is overcoming this handicap.

The price cutter rve have ahvays with us, the inherited instinct of selfishness is very far from being eliminated, but it is very evident that his star is not in the ascendancy.

In the book "Trader Horn" the author outlines in a very entertaining manner the co-operation of his firm which was of English origin, with that of a rival German company, both of whom were engaged in rubber and ivory trading operations on the Gold Coast in the early seventies. Telling of their desire to work harmoniously he has this to say of the guiding spirits of these two competitors:

"Wherever you meet any of these genuine giants of commerce, you rvill always find them run by gentlemen who are even at the present day bound by sound reasons, to accept each other's burdens for the sake of commerce which cannot exist without unity."

If these merchants, so opposed racially, could in those early ddys- see the futility of wasteful competition, should it not be easier for the modern merchant to conduct his business along rational lines, rvith a definite constructive merchandising policy?