May, 2008

Selecting Vendors

Good product is always key-but a good vendor relationship is critical, too.

By Bob Heidenreich

In my last column, I talked about how I evaluate decking products for our store. This issue, I’d like to expand on that a bit, and include how I evaluate and work with the vendors I prefer to buy from.

If you’re evaluating products, you have to first ask, “Can I make any money at this or is it going to be available at every box store in town? And is this product unique enough that I can ask the customer to pay the margins that I want?” Those two questions are key, and I want my vendor to answer them.

If everybody is going to have their particular product, if it’s available everywhere, there may not be enough value left it in for me by the time the consumer buys it.

We try to pick products that are relatively unique, and that take some skill to sell. Just because a salesman comes in and they meet the criteria I set out last month for selecting products, it doesn’t stop there.

I also have some other tests: It has to be an attractive product and something that someone would want. And then there’s the dealer/vendor chemistry that goes with it. You have to like the vendor, and you have to have a good relationship with them.

Working with vendors can sometimes be a tough relationship. For me, I’m not a big fan of all the various discounts and programs that some vendors prefer to use; And vendors don’t always understand that we talk among ourselves—we might
talk to another lumberyard or deck product seller, and we find out when the rules a vendor is imposing on us are different than those they’re putting on someone else. That won’t strengthen the relationship.

I’d rather just do away with that and see their lowest prices all the time. I don’t really understand some of the complicated
co-op advertising money arrangements or the 2% discount ideas—I’d rather just have their best price all the time.

If it’s a good product and it’s going to work for our customers, we’re going to really promote and sell that product without those inducements.

For our store, we carry several lines of composite decking, but in our showroom, we show many additional options, too. And we have literature and information for many, many kinds.

If a vendor makes it difficult for us to work with them, we’ll tend to gravitate to the people—and the products—that are good, that make us money, and that are the easiest for us to sell, because the vendor is in business with us.

BOB HEIDENREICH is the owner of the 30- employee Deck and Door Co., in Apply Valley, Minn. He has been selling decking and home improvement projects for 26 years.