Why do lumber yards do this.....or am I the one that is crazy..

[Bernie Weishapl]

Here in town we have 2 lumber yards. Both have their wood stored in building which are open on both sides. One is starting to go down rather quickly. You can't go out and pick your lumber. You park at the gate and they go get it for you. That is all fine and good but sometimes what they bring you is crap. I told them I wanted some straight and I meant straight 2 X 4's. What they brought me was a crooked as a dog's hind leg as my late grandfather would say. I told them they were not going to work. I was told take it or leave it. He just doesn't get it. His lumber yard since last fall has about a 1/3 of the lumber it used to have. It is just sad. The other one the kid took over from his dad who built the lumber yard up over 46 yrs. The lumber the kid gets in now is just terrible. I talked with him one day in January and he said he had to do it to make money. I told him people will pay a few dollars more for good quaility. He said well I have to compete with the big box store 35 miles away. I told him unless he started getting some quaility lumber in he was just going to keep losing ground to the box store. He stopped carrying any oak or birch plywood. Also doesn't carry any hardwoods like walnut, cherry, birch, etc. like his dad did. He said it costs to much. I said price it so you make money and people will buy. I said I bought from your dad because he is local and carried quaility for when I wanted to make furniture. Well I went down the other day for the first time in about 4 months. I noticed he now has oak and birch plywood. I see he got some oak, walnut and cherry hardwoods in. He is also expanding the inside store. It was a pleasant surprise. One other thing he did was to expand his hours back to what dad had. 6 am to 7 pm M-F and 8-3 S. The other day when we left town at 6:30 in the morning he already had building contractors there picking up supplies. Maybe he got the picture or dad put a boot where the sun doesn't shine.

[allen levine]

it must have shocked you when the guy said, take it or leave it, like, hey, Im the customer, are you kidding me?
I had something similar with red cedar I purchased before I had any tools to mill rough lumber, and I paid for linear feet.
I bought 8 foot boards, and the ends had cracks 6-10 inches long, so I told the guy Ill take it, just knock off 2 feet off each board. when he refused, I went into the boss, told him to refund my money, and within 2 minutes I had perfect boards.

[Robert Delhommer]

Last time a lumber yard told me I had to take off the top and could not pick and choose I said I will just take my money back and never went there again.

[Rob Keeble]

Its a complicated problem i think.
I agree with much of the discussion, the issue really gets back to basics. If you aint got the buying power to call the shots you need to recognise you need to differentiate yourself in some other preferably several other ways and do it excellent not just well.
The issue is when these sme owners get the blinkers on and begin to believe price is the only issue they let it drive them crazy and ruin their business.
No small guy can compete with the depots of this world when it comes to volume purchases and leveraging a deal but they all try.
Yet right under their nose there are elements of a sale that they could excel at but most often dont try.
Something tells me that there is a degree of resentment coming into play where they were once upon a time the only or pretty close to only game around for a decent distance and now find they got competition but dont know how to meet it head on.
Its not just workers that need retraining....i meet many bosses aka owners that need it too.
I firmly believe there are ways and means to overcome all these problems but it takes an attitude adjustment from the owner to get it right.

I find the opposite to be the case for my local hardware store. They have increased stock carry a greater variety of all sorts and are only a little more than the borg which is a ways further away. They dont sell lumber though. But i am spoilt by my local lumber yard although its priced accordingly.

Just a word of advice for some of you, make sure to ask about shorts. My lumber yard has loads of the run of the mill hardwood in precut shorts and this stuff is priced very good. So if i were making maple cutting boards the wood would be almost already cut. Makes no sense to be paying for wide thick boards to be faced with cutting it all up into strips.

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