Any tricks for getting "contractor" discount on supplies?

According to your logic, sounds like the contractor should be willing to pay "extra" for this service relative to the DIY who is willing to wait.

Again, your argument has nothing to do with the fact that price competition and transparency is intensifying and thus driving down margins which in general leads to lower spreads between retail and wholesale pricing.

If a supplier believes he can make more profit by offering consumers discounts and pulling business from other suppliers or from big box retailers then he should do so.

Whether or not he has to offer different levels of service to his business vs. layman customers is a different story and is not directly related to relative pricing.

What I object to (and indeed what the market is inexorably eliminating) is the sense of entitlement that certain groups feel towards receiving preferential pricing which ends up resulting in consumers subsidizing the profits of contractors even when they choose to go it alone (this is analogous to the push by record labels to add a tax to the sale of all blank media even if you choose to use it for non-copyrighted materials).

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky
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I agree. But, this is a business decision on the part of the supplier who needs to decide who is customer is and what is the cost of serving any given customer segment. This is independent of the sense of entitlement that contractors feel to receiving preferential pricing just because they hold some government license.

My point exactly. Material mark-ups shouldn't be used as hidden subsidies for contractor profits. I see nothing wrong with a contractor charging me a fair labor rate (including sufficient profit and overhead coverage) to install my 3rd party supplied materials.

On the other hand, unless the cost of serving me is that much higher than the cost of serving a contractor, I don't see why when I am a DIY, I should have to pay higher prices just because I don't belong to a certain guild with government charter (read: license).

The advantage of today is that the consumer has choice. I can go in to a supply house aware of the true pricing (via the Internet) and have a real (or implicit) conversation with the merchant. In the end, in return for convenience and service, I may choose to pay a somewhat higher price than the Internet price or the high volume contractor prices, but since I have other choices, the merchant knows that he can no longer get away with charging me the old 50% mark-up.

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

I have been doing a very similar thing by using the Internet as my pricing guide to make sure pricing is ballpark correct.

Agreed. This sense of contractor entitlement is ridiculous. People like Turtle object even if I get a discount on a job that I plan on doing myself anyway where the discount I get doesn't take away any of his profit!

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Jeff, this is what most supply warehouses do...they sell exclusively to contractors because it is actually easier...the *average* weekend warrior

*needs* a box stoor like home depot or lowes where as a contractor needs a supplier...most supply houses are no frill warehouses...they stock materials and a select list of other items...that contractors use and buy...they don't need large displays, and they don't need to have a bunch of different things because the customer want a red tapeline, instead of a yellow one....

having read the entire thread here i still don't understand what the uproar is over a contractor getting a "contractor's rate" at a supply house....it doesn't mean you have to hire that contractor....you can do your research on pricing, then get bids....but i can all but promise you one thing, telling a contractor that his "price" for materials is too high is not going to have him scrambling to lower his price to make you happy....in fact most contractors have three price levels....the price for a turnkey job, the price for the job if you wanna watch, and then the price(the highest by the way) for the homeowner that *thinks* they know more about the job than the contractor does....the third price will be roughly three times more than the first one...contractors don't really want to do jobs for "problem" customers and will gladly throw a "kiss-off" bid to them...

------------------- Chris Perdue "I'm ever so thankful for the Internet; it has allowed me to keep a finger in the pie and to make some small contribution to those younger who will carry the air-cooled legend forward" Jim Mais Feb. 2004

Reply to
Chris Perdue

you surely misunderstand what TURTLE is saying....the statement about contractors leaving their supplier because they start giving John Q. Public the same pricing has nothing to do with you saving a buck on a project that you want to do yourself...it has *everything* to do with you wanting to supply your own materials for a contractor, then he in turn has to raise the "labor" rate to cover the operating expenses that are normally covered by "material markup", and you screaming "thats not fair, George J plumber down the street only charges xxx for labor"(even if George P had given you a quote for a turnkey job, not a labor only job)....

Reply to
Chris Perdue

Everyone here seems to be ignoring the value to the supply house of having a pro come in, buy whole boxes of things at a time and signing for them. When this is all handled by the computer the paper flows and costs are reduced. If the counter man is wasting time answering dumb questions, breaking boxes and handling cash it simply costs more. Of course volume decides what column the contractor gets priced in. I suppose Harry Homeowner wants the same price as a contractor who rolls a few million bucks worth of supplies off the dock.

Reply to
Greg

Let me translate that. "what kind of lies can I tell to save a few dollars by falsely representing myself"??

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Reply to
Rich

On 11/02/04 11:39 am Doug Miller put fingers to keyboard and launched the following message into cyberspace:

I was thinking the other way round: that charging $90/hr for labor should mean that they don't have to charge retail for the parts -- just as Jeff (to whom I was reponding) said.

MB

Reply to
Minnie Bannister

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 16:32:07 -0600, "Rich" scribbled this interesting note:

I once saw a fellow hand a couple of eggs to the server at a Braums Ice Cream store for them to put in his milk shake! So yes, sometimes people take their eggs to the restaurant to have them prepared!:~)

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

Reply to
John Willis

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:04:13 -0800, "PrecisionMachinisT" scribbled this interesting note:

Sounds like you have the same experiences I have at those places!

I like a certain brand of work jeans. I work in them. I can go to Wal-Mart and buy them for $19.00 and stand in line all day (seems like no matter what time of day you go into a Wal-Mart it is always dark when you emerge!:~) or I can go to a different store almost a close by and pay $21.00 a pair and be able to go in, find my jeans, wait perhaps for a clerk to wait on one person at the most, pay, and be out of there in under ten minutes.

Yep, we think alike when it comes to big box stores!:~)

-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)

Reply to
John Willis

John,

Braum's has a pretty limited area. Where are you?

Dan in Oklahoma City

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net

Reply to
DanG

Earth to Turtle -- clearly you didn't bother to look at Home Depot's financial statements. While results for individual items may vary, Home Depot's gross margin according to their latest 10K filing is just shy of 32% (not 50%), giving them an operating margin of

10%. Considering that their buying power allows them to get better pricing than other supply houses let only the price that wholesalers sell to contractors like yourself, I find it hard to believe that your retail pricing is on average 20% better than Home Depot. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't individual items where you can beat Home Depot on price, just that I don't believe that you can buy from a local supply house, add your own markup and still sell parts on average 20% cheaper than Home Depot.

Great I will make a deal with you. When I need HVAC parts, why don't you sell them to me cheaper than my best Internet price and you can make even more profit than you do now since I won't ask you to install the part or warranty it.

This is a ridiculous statement. Contractors would be needed for installation and repair and would rightly price their labor to cover their overhead plus profit. Only a small fraction of the population in my neck of the woods would ever even think of doing a minor repair themselves let alone a major HVAC installation.

If anything, the clearer delineation between the true cost of parts vs. labor may lead to more work for contractors since consumers would have more faith that they are getting what they paid for.

A complete non-sequitur.

The decline of the repair business has more to do with the fact that the fast pace of innovation, the declining costs of production, the relative high cost of U.S. repair *labor* (not parts) and our overall throwaway mentatlity and newer-is-better culture encourage consumers to prefer buying a new one to repairing the old one.

In the market economy that I live in, consumers whether consciously or unconsciously on average make an economically (near) optimum decision that says it is not worth repairing the old.

In fact, the only time it often makes sense to repair is when you are a DIY since the major cost of repair is labor not parts. Which brings me back to the original point that efficient market economics calls for more transparently separating the costs of labor and materials so that consumers can make rational choices about how to spend their money.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Without getting too personal, might I ask what you do for a living Jeffery?

DJ

Reply to
DJ

I have doubts about this. From your words and tone, I don't think you are happy to pay full value for anything ...

Still, I can't understand why you're so concerned about how much profit I make. Your concern should be the quality of the work, the quality of the materials and *the cost to you*.

Here's why: I renovate your bathroom. A month later, there's a problem with the bathtub ... a hairline crack. You call me to say what do we do?

I supplied the tub and the plumber ... and marked both up by my standard 25%. Which means the tub cost you 5% more than you could buy it for at retail ... and plumber cost you about $15 an hour LESS than you could hire one at from the phone book.

Since I was the supplier, I pay to have the tile surround removed, the tub removed and replaced, and new tile work for the surround.

OR --- You supplied the tub which you bought to save my markup. It's your problem, not mine.

I don't know what your experience with this approach has been ... and I suspect that no matter what it has been, you would claim it's been great.

I can tell you what your experience would be here: no serious pro would even look at your project.

If you can't see the difference, then you've got a real problem. Maybe you can find a shrink who gives discounts.

Ken

Reply to
bambam

I agree. Again, I was only objecting to the argument that contractors have a god-given right to lower pricing and that somehow if I get a low price for my DIY repair then I am either putting contractors out of business or causing them to riot against their suppliers.

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

You have it exactly backwards. The usual situation as pointed out by another poster is that many greedy contractors charge a market rate for labor and then hide additional profit margin in the cost of materials thinking that the consumer is too dumb to notice and will only look at the hourly rate. Well, lucky for us consumers, the Internet is making pricing more transparent and making it easier for consumers to weed out overpriced bids.

When I am given a quote for labor and materials, I want the quote to represent just that. Materials is the cost of materials (plus associated expenses) and the labor is the cost of labor (including overhead and profit). I then look at both numbers and try to determine if they are reasaonable. If someone is not giving me reasonable or honest numbers, than how can I trust anything they say (including how they measure time :)

Just the opposite to your claim, I would much prefer to go with the guy with honest materials costs and higher labor rate than the smooth-talking guy with marked-up materials numbers and a slightly lower labor rate (although as pointed out above, the reality is that he will probably also come to you with a higher labor rate claiming that he is "more skilled")

Jeff

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

It doesn't matter how you look at it, they're going to make their profit one way or another. Why argue about what label they choose to put on it?

Reply to
Doug Miller

Not ignored at all -- in all my posts, I have acknowledged that volume allows for some discount, however the impact of volume is much less than people think given the increasing efficiency of retail sales and the supply chain behind it. Second, even contractors don't buy all that much volume in the grand scheme of things. Third, many if not most contractors don't buy all that much volume of any single part; rather, they come in every day (or sometimes several times a day) making a series of relatively small purchases -- the advantages of volume are mostly about single part/single transaction volume rather than annualized transaction volume.

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

I prefer to think of it as: What can I do to prevent from being ripped off by suppliers and contractors who think I am just a "rich", naive yuppie who is ripe for being ripped off :)

Since when does having a government license or a contractor business card give one some legal or god-given right to better pricing?

If I act like a contractor and don't waste the time of the sales clerk any more than a real contractor, then why should I not get similar pricing? (after adjusting perhaps for some volume discount that true high volume contractors may deserve)

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

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