Your favorite place to buy roofing material

Contractors--what is your favorite place to buy your materials and why?

soldierboy Said: We use Willoughby Supply here in Ohio. They area a local that has expanded over the years. I can send in a fax before 1:00 p.m. for my materials and have them on the rooftop by 10:00 a.m. the next morning. They also offer same day delivery and express delivery within an hour for those mistakes that we have all made. They are not the cheapest by far but they are the best at customer service and rooftop deliverys. We dont have to stop working to help them load the roof at all. Keeps us fresh on the roof. Second, would be Modern Builders Supply. That is only cause they are the cheapest. We use them to keep our cashflow moving and when we have enough time to set up a job 2-3 days in advance. They are good guys but lack behind the service we get with WIlloughby. Price is hardly ever the issue, Customer Service is big with our company.

I know the family that owns Willoughby--it is a great company and one of the best independent distributors in the nation--good, hard working guys!

We use Willoughby Supply here in Ohio. They area a local that has expanded over the years. I can send in a fax before 1:00 p.m. for my materials and have them on the rooftop by 10:00 a.m. the next morning. They also offer same day delivery and express delivery within an hour for those mistakes that we have all made. They are not the cheapest by far but they are the best at customer service and rooftop delivery's. We don't have to stop working to help them load the roof at all. Keeps us fresh on the roof. Second, would be Modern Builders Supply. That is only cause they are the cheapest. We use them to keep our cashflow moving and when we have enough time to set up a job 2-3 days in advance. They are good guys but lack behind the service we get with WIlloughby. Price is hardly ever the issue, Customer Service is big with our company.

Earl - I found that RCSer of the month interview with EGG. I posted it.

Egg: Your first sentence goes back to my post - Pick 2.

Earl: Egg is one of my favorites also. I am going to look for and re-post his old RCS'er of the month interview. You will like him even more!

Old School--I am new school to the forum. Thus I will look to Vicki to guide me to sign in on the thread.

As far as where I am from--Saint Paul MN in the summer and Queen Creek Arizona in the winter. Our cooperative is NEMEON www.nemeon.com if you want to take a look.

I used to run a business here called Roof Depot. We sold it in 2006 to Beacon Roofing Supply. Now I am President/CEO of this cooperative that has over 180 members who are all independent businesses. Our job is to level the playing field so they can compete on all aspects with the large national chains and big boxes.

Egg--great comments. You would be one of my favorite customers.

I guess that I will give this subject a try. When I first started out on my own in 1974/5 I quickly realized that all suppliers offer a combination of three big things. Price, service, and terms. It's hard for small contractors to get the best of all three from one place. Nevertheless, for any given period the little guy generally settles on one or two sources that offer the best combination of those three.

Of course price is where we all start, but that is seriously affected by terms. Service is harder to assess but probably more important than either of the other two assuming pricing is at least in line. Service includes honesty, reliability, promptitude, knowledge, willingness to spend some time on non-core sales items, location, capacity, and a fairly long list of etceteras.

As a buyer, I assume I need to reciprocate across the board. I view my clients as relationships and I view my suppliers as relationships. It takes some strength of relationship and some history to get me centered on a supplier and the supplier usually gets about three mess-ups before they get bumped. I don't count them secretly until I get to three. I bring up my beefs when they happen and if they get redressed, they are penciled out and the account goes clean. A stack of three and it's over. I'll still buy if the price is good enough, but it's just bargain hunting at that point.

Loyalty generates loyalty or it's no fun. The money isn't good enough if it's no fun.

I buy ahead on parts and accessories. I like to have control of my stock. I shop for that stuff and if the price isn't right, I go where it is. I'm always looking. The heavyweight things I can't stock in quantity. I want someone who stocks what I want to sell. I want to sell what my clients need to be getting. I want to buy from people who carry a wide variety of goods. Big box stores that stock Timberline lightweight laminates don't interest me. I'll buy their units of OSB. That's about it. I don't want their 28 gauge junk.

But I'll be honest. If I like the people and their price is in line, it's hard to keep me from buying from them. Sometimes I will pay more than they are asking just to prove to them that I want them to make money too. I have fun at it and it keeps me smiling.

In my market, I would have to say Allied coming in was much more of a game changer than ABC. They both entered the market about the same time. Allied bought out a small distributor and built it into three yards, where ABC has only one. It used to be handy for buying specialty tools, but nowadays the aisles of tools have disappeared from the showroom and it seems anything I need from them is special order. As for insurance, the stae of Washington is so hostile to insurance companies that anyone that has became a billionaire, whether a Hendricks or Warren Burret knows to avoid the state. I was a distributor for a little more than a decade starting in 1987, carrying Monier, Malarkey and a couple of accessary lines. Before Monier would allow me to be a distributor, I had to have a seperate location, trucks and GM than my roofing company. Because I also had my roofing company, they wouldn't even let me know how much of a discount I would get as a distributor until I was made a distributor. When they told me what it was, I was stunned, "I did all this for a measly $7 per square?"

But then I learned the game and between frieght allowances, vollume discounts, hot lists, job specific prices etc, instead of $7 per square it could be as high as $30 or more per square. I could have discounted the tile $7 per square and be like a car dealer claiming to sell a car at "invoice" and still made my money from the special programs.

Earl, well said. Hey, you chould sign in on the thread and let us know where you are from. Over 8,000 hit s so far and growing.

Interesting comments which I appreciate. Our cooperative has over 180 independent roofing and siding distributors nation-wide. Most are family owned businesses. We all compete for the contractor's business.

Robert--Unfortunately the competitive nature of the business does not allow us to overcharge for the products we sell--and I can guarentee you we are not in cohoots! The average before tax bottom line profit in our market is less than 5%. We are brick and mortar businesses that take a lot of risk (buildings, trucks, inventory, people, etc..) only to split our profit take with Uncle Sam at the end of the year. I don't think most contractors would do what we do for what the owners get to keep at the end of the year.

As for Dianne--her and her husband Ken were a game changer for distribution in the United States. They took a risk by buying three run down distribution yards and made it work from there. Before ABC Supply, most manufacturers had their own distribution and did a poor job at it. ABC basically created a clear path to a distribution channel that is beneficial to both contractors and manufacturers. They are our biggest competitor and tough--good at what they do which means we need to be better--I guess that is good competition. Buying an insurance business just compliments their committment to our industry and I applaude Dianne for again taking a risk. Thanks Vicki for your support on this topic--I do welcome all comments--good, bad, indifferent or otherwise.

Distribution is truly a volume based business Steve. The problem I have is if distributors/ manufacturers try to influence pricing in the contractor market, they are comparing apples to oranges.

Workmanship and Service are two very different things. But yet they must survive hand in hand.

Reminds of when I started. I wanted EVERY ROOF! For about the 1st month. The distributors don't want every contractor, do they?

Few Mom & Pop contractors have the structure. No contractors can survive on IOU's. We can't take the liabilties of crap workmanship or an uncaring workforce.

When distributors think it as easy as us lowering our prices to get more work, they are slowly cutting their own throats as well. There are dozens of places to buy shingles near me......

I for one don't like carrying the dead weight that don't pay their bills on time and whose "credit" (debt) is reflected in my material prices.

Well I think you and Miss Vickie know all that Steve. Just venting

As someone whos wife has run a material supply yard for many years I can tell you that thier markup (which is not as much as you may think) is not what makes the material prices so high its the manufacturers, oil prices etc.., she builds here yards business on good service and loyalty to thier customers.

by the way thats how we met.

Larry b. I haven't seen you on this forum before. You should sign in on the thread telling us where you are from and you actual name. Still looking for someone from the middle west of this country on here.

Hey, if Hendricks wife bought an insurance company, more power to her. The fact that they built it up to over 600 locations means that they are doing something right, and most of the time too.

I don't get why a lot of the people are mad at their suppliers. They don't "set' the rates, the government is the one that devalues the currency and cuts our feet from beneath us. The price is set by the demand and they do a great job of having what we need and want availible. We are all capable of setting up our own supply houses and selling to the public. it is a huge risk and very capital intensive. I say go for it if you think you can make a buck. I don't need the hassle.

Earl Said: Contractors--what is your favorite place to buy your materials and why?

Most of the well known names except for the nationwide supply company whose billionaire owner recently purchased a P&C insurance company with some of the money she made off of thousands of contractors over the years.

Nah, don't worry. Roofing ads character AKA wrinkles.

Sometimes one can prove a point by trying to disprove a point. It looks like I'm probably outta here.