Lumber Yard or Changes in Retail Distribution

By Dr. Wilson Compton

From a recent address to the National Lurnber Manufacturers Association

There has been a striking transformation in the position of the retail lumber deder. Formcrly the retail dealer, in fact as well as in name, was a deder in lurnber. In the nrral line yards other supplementary materiatrs wert regulady handled; but usually not materials in direat competition with lumber. In larger towns and cities, a few' lunrber yards continuc to tundle lurnbcr onlS while the builders' supply yards handle diversified building material. But the number is small and growing smaller.

Spcaking i4 general tcrms, the retail lumber dealers are in fact no longer lurrlberrnen. They are friendly to lumber. They always bave bcen. They formerly wer€ pa.rtisan to lururber. A few still are. Most are not; and they will not be. Thcy are not going on lumbet's note. The lumber industry will hereafter harrc to cstablish its own credit with the consundng public. The retail dealcr will of coursc, corrrtinuc to be the lunben industr/s point of sal€s contact with the oonsuntr, who alrcady rants to buy lurnbcr; but not the means of persuading the consumc to use lurnber in prcference to thc myriads of substitutes which arc today pressing for his patronagte.

If the hmrber manrdacturers will acccpt this fact and plian accordinglyJrowcvcr disagreeable thc fact ruay bc-it will save rvaste efict, avoid needless disappointment, makc more progress, and ma&e it more SuicHy. The rctailers havc shown that they will help, but witr not initiatc; and insofar as the direct interests of lurnber are oonoerned, t'hcy will follow, but fur most cascs, will not lcad.

Ttre transformation of the typical i6tril yard from a lumbcr yard to a distributor of divcrsified building materials, has bccn gfadual, not Ecctacular, but almost universal. The backbonc of thc retail yard business is still lurnber. But this is true only in the serre that lurnber lqrrcscnts the largcst singlc iteo of its aggfegate volunre, ard not in thc senc that lunber is no longer a preferred commodity. In fact, ia tbousands of retail yards, espocially the srnaller yards, hrnh6r is etilt carry- ing the overhcad of thc entire busines, notwithstanding the fact that substihrtes for lumber origin- dly takcn o as "side lines," are now being handlcd in an aggregatc voluruc substantially greater than the volume of lumber itself. What was oncc "tail" has in many cas6 now becornc the ..dog." The volume oI othcr materials being sold, for example, in the middle western raail linc yards todan largely consisting of substitutes for lumber, is haE again as gneat tts thc volurne of lumbcr.

The retail lumber dealers as intermediari,€s bctween @nsumers and producers, are not rcsponsible for theso changes, thcy, or at least thc best of them, are in a large scnsc advisqs to drc consurncrs. But, to a still greater cxtent, they are mcrcly interpreters-and certainly not the originato,rs-of the consura€rs' demand of preferences. The dealer obviously will buy what he can sell most easily, and at the largest profit. What he can sell depends not upon what *re producer wishes to make; but rather upon what the consumer prefers to usc. More and more the retail dealcr is becoming the translator, in carload lotc, of thc wagon load preferences of his custorners.

Here is the point at which the lumber industry is now feeling the accumulated results of tcns of rnilliroru of dollars of s,killful advertising and aggressive trade promotion by its cornpetitors, whil,e the lrrn:ber industry lras to a liargc extent been aontent to depend upon custorD, tradition and inertia, to maintain its products in goneral usc. The latfer has bean-and will be-no match for t]re forrner.

This is a condition created not by the retail hurrber dealers but by the oonsumers thernselves. Under ttrc ,stimulus of the ardent trade extension and merchandising activities of thc manufacturers of the leading substitute matcrials. Thc lumbcr industry as a whole has heretofore let tlris trecrd go unchallenged. It has chosen to regard the progress of substitutes and the displac.errent of lumber as either inevitable, or merely telrrporrary. To a large exteng it is neither."