Any tricks for getting "contractor" discount on supplies?

There's no deception involved. You can't seem to get your mind around the simple concept that only the *total* price matters. How the contractor chooses to break it down is irrelevant.

Suppose I bid on a job for you, and we agree on a total price of $500. Then, when I present my invoice showing $200 for materials (that cost me $100) and $300 for labor, you complain that I'm overpricing my materials -- but if I had presented an invoice showing $100 for materials and $400 for labor, you'd be okay with that???

Reply to
Doug Miller
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On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 01:51:43 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@consult.pretender (Jeffrey J. Kosowsky) scribbled this interesting note:

Except that when doing a paint job on someone's home most of the cost is in labor. Now most people seem to think that just because a paint brush will fit in their hands that they are painters. Alas, such is not the case. It takes a bit of patience and knowledge to know how to properly prep a house for paint-two things most homeowners don't know about. Actually holding the brush is one of the less important things in the job!:~)

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

Reply to
John Willis

You seem to not be able to read what I write. I have said many times that I have nothing wrong with total price bid. Just if you are going to break it into parts and labor, then you should do so in a way that reasonably represents the two components. Otherwise, at best you are providing useless information and at worse you are misleading me into believing that your labor is more competitively priced than your competitors and that the difference in materials cost is due to true difference in choice of materials.

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

If you can buy, install, and profit for less than HomeDepot gross margin of 30%, then that is truly amazing!

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Isn't that what I said? -- "major cost of repair is labor not parts"

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

This is Turtle.

Well to be more exact here. There is another discount system set up for discount / wholesale buyers that is rated in a scale of A to Z type buyers. I'm a G buyer and Home Depot is said to be a W buyer or could be a Z buyer. The W buyer will be a 11% more discount than me at a G buyer level. So Home Depot can buy close to 11% cheaper than I can.

The reason you see the higher prices from HD is they have a higher over head than I and have to account for them. This is why Home Depot, Sears, and Low's stores is getting their ass eat up by independent contractor and the customers don't check prices out at Independent contractor before buying. These store are tring to cut the over head down and now are hiring the cheapest independent contractor to install their equipment for them and they are having too many return calls to pay for by not installing the equipment right the first time. They do hire the cheapest or the Rookie of the year contractor to try to keep the overhead down to compete with the regular hvac contractor.

Now i love to bid against Sears because I alway bid about $1,000.00 cheaper than Sears on complete hvac systems. All sears does is get a Independent contractor to do the job and then stick a $1K on top for them as profit and handling the paperwork and selling the unit at the stores. I don't install for Sears because they wanted me to sign a agreement to not bid against them in my area. I would not sign because i think the public should have a choice of prices and dealers to choose from.

Now like I said before I walked off into a bunch of Non-Wholesale buy to try to explain the discount system.

2 cents more.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

Ahhh... I didn't realize you were referring to Home Depot price of

*installed* equipment. In that case, I agree with you entirely both on pricing and quality. Service and installation is a huge profit center for them and they higher the cheapest possible labor without too much regard for quality.

I was talking more about the price of components (for DIY jobs) where pricing is more transparent and competitive. In that case, I would find it hard to believe that you could provide parts and labor for the same price I could buy the part at Home Depot (assuming that you are using "equivalent" parts -- the quality of Home Depot parts is for another thread...)

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

I think what you're yearning for is a verifiable figure on the "parts + labor" portion of a bid. So if you know the fixtures you chose for your bathroom are models X, Y, and Z, and if you can find out what the contractors price is, you can eliminate any bids that show the materials cost higher than you've determined.

Reply to
HA HA Budys Here

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky posted for all of us....

But you ARE wasting their time. You admitted you called one branch did your research, then called the other branch to order. Meanwhile somebody is waiting at the counter while the first branch nursemaids you.

You pay sales tax for that stuff? Probably not...

What do you do for a living? Bet you're in by 8:05 and gone by 4:55 and if you have to stay you want OT or a bonus.

Reply to
Tekkie

On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 14:45:28 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@consult.pretender (Jeffrey J. Kosowsky) scribbled this interesting note:

But in that case what you are paying for is expertise.

I agree, a total price that is not deceptive in breaking down prices is best...which happens to be how we estimate and bid jobs.

For what it is worth, what I was saying above is the common, garden variety do-it-yourselfer is not qualified to hold a paint brush. I apologize if you missed the implication.

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

Reply to
John Willis

Hello Jeffrey!

You've done an admirable job arguing your case, probably won't convince any pro's here to change their mind...

I'm more interested your repeated allocutions to pricing via the internet. Would you care to share with the group these internet sources?

As a 'confirmed' DIY'er myself, I'm trying hard to see your point. Whenever I've gone to specialty suppliers (the contractor's sources) it has always been armed with specific item numbers/descriptions/quantity information. Be it from my own research or advice of a hired pro. However, to go from one specialty house to another takes up *way* more time than simply stopping by one of the two borgs in my neighborhood. I maybe saving 10-15% at the specialty shop, but waste a lot of time doing so... I digress...

And if labor is generally ~50%~ of a projects cost, are you realizing your greatest savings by doing the work? Plus, end the end the realization that

*you* did the work!

Rick

Reply to
pray4surf

Do your research, know exactly what you want by name, make, model and part number, and find out the retail price, go to a local wholesaler of that item and ask his price. Ask for his trade price it should be anywhere from 10% to

33.3% lower than retail. If you act professionally, they may give you the trade price. If they don't, try somewhere else.

Reply to
Eric Tonks

For someone with a name like "Tekkie", you sound like you have an IQ of about 50. Do you know how to follow a Usenet thread? If you did, you would know that I was not the poster who talked about calling "one branch" and going to another.

Just because you appear to be a shady contractor whose business is threatened by honest pricing does not mean that others are similarly dishonest. Trying to get the best price on supplies is "good 'ole American capitalism," cheating on taxes is illegal -- can you grasp the difference?

I am sure that your pea brain could not even begin to comprehend what I do for a living :)

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Thanks.

I usually use the Internet more for researching what is available and finding out competitive pricing is more of a side benefit.

I don't disagree. In fact, until recently, I used to just go buy everything at the big box store, until I started hearing rumors of inferior products masquerading as name brand product -- hard to know how much of this is just self-serving innuendo served up by threatened mom-and-pop supply houses, but it has made me hesitate before just scooping up parts at Home Depot.

Now if doubts about Home Depot quality lead me to start visiting more supply houses, then at least I don't want to feel like I am paying twice as much as the guy next to me just because he calls himself a contractor.

What I don't understand is why so many disgruntled contractors on this newsgroup are so offended by this to the point of getting nasty and ad-hominem. I am not forcing anybody to give me better pricing -- it is a free country and vendors are free to give me discounts or not. In fact, it would be quite naive and reckless of me not to try to get the best price for an item. I mean how many people walk into a store when an item is on sale and say please give me the regular price instead...

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Thanks -- very helpful.

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

The rumors are generally true. The likes of HD and Lowes have the ability to get manufacturers to make special lines of their product, sold only through these respective stores.

Case in point - HD made Milwakee replace some metal parts in their power tools with plastic in order to cut the cost of, and therefore the price to, Home Depot.

Kwikset and Shlege locks made only for HD or Lowes.

American Standard and some Kohler faucets which look exactly like the ones available from any plumbing supplier, yet somehow made in China instead of the USA and for some odd reason, a few ounces lighter.

And, you don't really believe that either HD or Lowes is getting the best lumber from the mills, and leaving the seconds for the builder's lumberyards, do you?

You wouldn't be paying twice as much. But you would be paying more because professional supply houses cater to the professionals who have a different way of doing business than your typical retail customer. And while choosing to sell to professionals or choosing to sell retail both have their pros and cons, generally, it is more expensive to deal with the public than on a pro-to-pro basis.

I can't speak for anyone else, but if an Item retails for 100 bucks but contractors get it for 75. because they spend thousands every month, and don't take up counter employee time, and don't pay for floor space for pretty displays, and don't have to pay markups due to retail shrink, and don't pay for air conditioning and heating hundreds of thousands of sq. ft. of storage space... and that wholesaler starts catering to retail clients and all it's added expenses as if there was no comparison, I'd be a little miffed too.

Reply to
HA HA Budys Here

This is Turtle.

No Jeffrey, The only reason we are still talking about this issue is you don't like the mark up on parts and material and You not being told about it. You want like a hvac contractor to tell you he buys the condenser for $411.00 and will install it for $1,200.00. Then you take that info and tell the next contractor that you will give him $411.00 for the condenser and you think $300.00 labor seems good enough and take it or leave it. The good contractor will walk off, but the hvac hack will take you up on it and just throw it in and collect the money with no warrenty. Then when you want some one to come fix the mistake. You have to call the good contractor back which will charge you out your ass for fixing it because your stuck with no warrenty. All good contractors know a hack has been there by just looking at the equipment and we all think a like. If you pull the price game on one contractror. They tell each other and wait for you. If you was just screwed by a hack out of just getting bids from all. I / We will try to cut the cost of fixing the screw up as low as we can.

If you think you breaking new ground on the pricing game , well son , it has been done back in the 1950's till today and the result is still the same. 1/3 of my HVAC business is just fixing screw up by Hacks and Pricing Game players. Tuesday i will be replacing a split system on a $400k home that a hack put in and was under sized & Poorly installed. The system is 3 years old and will pull it out and install it correctly in his guest house and replace the main unit with a new 4 ton 15 seer. Now the hack sure give him a good price on the system but it did not work like it should have.

I know it is tuff on you have to be not told all the details of the job but the world and the industry will go on without you. If you did not know it but your the best help the Hacks of this industry has because of wanting to know all price and not look at who is doing the job. The Hack's love Price Game player for they can cut the price down to do the job without worring about quality of the labor being presented. If all, customer really started looking at quality of the installation. Hacks would just get out of the business for they would have hell getting jobs.

TURTLE

Reply to
TURTLE

Not sure where you are getting the above -- you seem to be either unable or unwilling to understand what I am saying. - First, if you have at all followed the thread, my primary question was about how I can increase my odds at getting a contractor discount when I am acting essentially as a contractor (whether as a DIY or as a general contractor for my own own job). In reality, I find that I sometimes get the discount and sometimes don't.

- You and others then twisted this thread into a discussion of contractor markup on pricing. In that case, I responded that adding a large markup to materials essentially is a hidden way of shifting labor costs from the labor to the materials column. My point there is that this is confusing, potentially deceptive, makes it difficult to compare true pricing, and basically makes the labor vs. materials cost meaningless.

- In any case, I have always said that total price is what matters (assuming contractors are of equal quality and job is the same).

Not sure what you are ranting about but this has *nothing* to do with labor vs. materials mark-up. You seem to be saying that one should not go with the lowball price because you often get what you pay for which is of course self-evident.

Again, this has nothing to do with anything I ever said -- sounds like you have some personal problems with this but not sure what this has to do with me.

It is always easy to win a strawman agrument... the only problem is that you are arguing with yourself. Again, I never claimed that one should buy only on price.

The irony (which you clearly fail to appreciate) is that having more transparent pricing for labor and materials actually helps in part to minimize the problems that you are ranting about. Specifically, if the pricing for materials and labor are accurately represented then when you get a low price you can more easily analyze the following: - If price of materials is lower, is that because the contractor is using cheaper quality materials? - If price of labor is lower is that because one contractor is pricing too high or because one contractor is lowballing?

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Sure. Go see your lawyer. Set up an LLC or S corporation. Fill out the state/federal tax forms. File the appropriate credit apps with your suppliers. You are now a legit contractor. Pay all your bills before the 10th prox. and take that discount, too. Now go play by the rules. HTH

Joe

Reply to
Joe Bobst

I'm sorry, I don't remember receiving the rule book in the mail :)

Perhaps you live in Cuba or some other last bastion of Marxism, but here in the USA, there is no law against trying to get the best price possible and there are no "rules" saying that only a certain privileged group of citizens get prices.

Hope it makes you smile, that after asking for it, I started getting the contractor discount at my local electrical and plumbing supply store so long as I pay cash rather than credit card. BTW, I don't remember the other contractors in line minding too much either.

Now take your sour grapes and go sulk in the corner!

Reply to
Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

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