Lumber Dealers Are Fast Becoming Modern Building Material Merchants

By Floyd A. Dernicr

I have just completed a trip which covered the greater part of the state and the wonderful transformation that is taking place in California shows conclusively the progressive spirit of California's Home Building exponents, and the earnest desire these men ar€ exercising in serving the building public.

Surely Jack Dionne can well feel proud of the part he and his live-wire bunch who edit the "California Lumber Merchant" have played in preaching the gospel of Modern Merchandising, and the '!i/ay we are conducting business here in the West.

The Modern Merchandising Bug has infected the entire State. Everywhere lumber dealers are tearing down their shacky-unsightly offices and in their places are erecting modern display and service rooms, where home builders are privileged to study and choose the very latest ideas in modern home building plans, all dolled up in colors showing each home in life-like reality, enabling them to know in advance just what every department of the new home will look and be like and what it will cost before construction work is started. As this service is followed up with complete detailed plans, home builders are able to place into the hands of their contractors the home completely built on paper which shows just what they want done and how to do it, thereby eliminating every avenue of guess work and costly errors. Lumber merchants like this new plan of merchandising because it attracts home builders to them, and the information and service they render produces non-competitive business.

No one thinks of asking the price of boards; as a matter of fact, home builders are not interested in boards. their reouirements call for a completed home-not parts-and here again is -where Service helps to make added profits.

These display rooms are fitted up with built-in features, mill work, sash and doors, screens, panels, paints, hardware and hardwood flooring samples. Just the things ihat make ideal homes attractive and.convenient, and home builders welcome the opportunity of consulting and advising with permanent merchants -whose cbnfdence they. respect and whose judgment they value, and dealers in turn find it easy to sell ideas. It's a languale home builders understand, each prospect has certain requirements to meet in number and arrangements of rooms. They may or may not have a definite style of architecture in mind-the hand-colored photographs will hdp them to decide, and when they have adopted a plan to meet their needs, their only request is-What will it cost to build that par- ticular home complete. Not a thing is said about lumber prices, because home builders are no more interested in home parts than they are in automobile parts; they are in position to spend a certain amount of money and want to know how much real home value it will buy.

There was a time when contractors were consulted 6rst by home builders. Some of them were competent-many were incompetent and some just fly-by-night, nothing more or less than leachers on home builders and material dealers. It was the red ink on the ledger and poor workmanship on homes that encouraged many dealers to adopt and apply SERVICE. There is nothing about an ordinary contractor's home to instill desires for home ownership, and create demands for materials, while an attractive, convenient, well planned home makes strong appeals. Each of these new satisfied home owners are bold in their praise for the service these modern dealers are rendering. The Home Building Public are, have been, and always will be hungry for practical building information, and dealers have found a ready response to their creative advertising, not only from the public, but from contractors as well. Reliable contractors prefer to buitd from detailed ptans created and developed by others; under this plan they are advised in advance what to 6gure on and just what is wanted, eliminating all misunderstandings, and assuring them a legitimate profit for thelr work. Under old methods of acting.in the capacity of both architect and contractor, building from partialty developed sketches, usually resulted in dissatisfaction, because things were always presenting themselves that were not figured on from the start but which hat to be included in order to satisfy and receive 6nal settlement, which absorbed the greater part if not all of the profit there was in the jobs.

Yes, dealers are finding service and modern merchandising methods to _be the most important department of their business and a pro6t- able one as well; the only rvbnder is that it has not been in piactice always.