Timber Trader Feature

Timber Trader UK Feature

What sets the business apart compared to other merchants locally?

Timber availability is something that we’ve always strived ourselves on. We want our customers to feel confident that we have the material they need – when they need it. For this reason, we typically keep a large volume of our timber on the shelf. This gives us the ability to service orders internally and externally with a much quicker turnaround than many other local merchants. To assist this, we operate our own delivery service with vehicles ranging from 3.5 – 44T. This allows us to cater to a range of customers, from home deliveries to order direct to site.

What are the market leading timber products for the trade and construction sector that you are seeing?

Our core focus as a business is fencing and landscaping product. With this in mind, feather edge and standard sawn timber remain the leading products from our range. We always make sure our timber is supplied from FSC or PEFC-certified suppliers. In fact, this is one of our criteria for suppliers, as we would never consider offering uncertified or conflict timber.

How does T G Howell & Sons see the merchant sector developing over the next 18 months – how can the sector improve and thrive more?

The next 18 months look set to be a challenge for the merchant sector. Coming off the back of two very strange years, things seem to have slowed down to pre-Covid demand. Our business and certainly the industry learnt a lot over the last couple of years. As an independent, we’re aware that we relied too heavily on sales just through our merchant sites, failing to invest as much as we should have in our digital systems and online. The huge upturn in customers shopping from home throughout the pandemic gave us an opportunity to really drive this area of our business. As we begin to return to the new ‘norm’, a lot of these shopping behaviours seem to have remained and customers are shopping around a lot more before committing to purchase materials. We only see this trend increasing over the next 18 months, as the future remains uncertain on the increase in cost of living. That’s why we’re continuing to invest in this area of our business to better serve our customers and to remain reactive to changes in our market.