Trades and Suppliers Feel the Pinch

Burrill attributes the better customer service to Curb Appeal Renovations’ loyalty to its suppliers. “Unless their price seems outrageous, I don’t question it. I don’t have time to shop it, and I trust them to give me the best price they can.”

Sterich approached his cabinet, countertop, and appliance suppliers and arranged for the four of them to work a home show together. “No matter how many leads we received, it was nice to strengthen our relationships with our suppliers,” he says.

Supply Squeeze

But while some suppliers will do just about anything to secure a remodeler’s business, there’s a downside, too: delayed delivery times on some materials.

Olivia Holcombe, who is executive vice president of the Mid-America Lumbermens Association, in Kansas City, Mo., says that layoffs have affected suppliers more strongly in urban markets. “Rural markets have stayed consistently steady,” she points out. “They were not engaged so much with tract builders as in urban markets, and agriculture has stayed fairly strong.”

Balentine’s custom cabinet shop made staff cuts, and lead time has increased — even on small orders. “We used to wait two to three weeks,” he says. “We’re now waiting three to five weeks.” Similarly, his millwork company laid off most of its drivers. “You could call and get a trim load in two or three days, now you have to call them one week out.”

Balentine says that it’s tough to adjust production schedules because the delays are inconsistent. In addition, his clients do not understand the delays because they think that if business is slow, manufacturers have staff ready to produce items.

Lynne Gallant, vice president of sales and marketing for Spivey Construction, in Indianapolis, says that delays on window and cabinet deliveries have increased as existing supplies have dwindled.

Entire orders are delayed, or she only receives partial orders. Since Spivey Construction collects payments from the home­owner based on key work completions, the delays are affecting the company’s cash flow. “For a large window installation,” she says, “we had to wait six weeks for the grids to get the last $8,000.”

Gallant says that she has also noticed a drop in service due to layoffs at supply companies: “I used to get a good turnaround on quotes, but now it’s taking several days to get a quote back and several days for a question to be answered.” The aim in managing this “juggling act” she says, is “not to have our customers see any difference.”

John Amor, president of Great American Building Materials, in North Kansas City, Mo., says that suppliers are becoming smarter about their stock. “Our inventory level has gone down but we are spending more time keeping the ‘right’ products in stock. We looked at a few years of history,” he says, weighting the list more toward last year’s data. For example, he found that blue siding is not popular — home­owners prefer clay and white. “For years, we did not pay attention and always had blue laying around. It has been a learning experience that we needed.”

—Nina Patel, senior editor, REMODELING.

This is a longer version of an article that appeared in the January 2010 issue of REMODELING.