Distribution Trends At A Glance - building materials wholesalers - Brief Article

Home Channel News, July 2, 2001

DISTRIBUTION TRENDS AT A GLANCE
DISTRIBUTOR PRODUCTIVITY
Building materials wholesalers see productivity drop slightly as
hardlines wholesalers earn slight gains
Sales per employee, in thousands of dollars
                                  1999    2000
BUILDING MATERIAL DISTRIBUTORS  $613.0  $605.8
HARDLINES DISTRIBUTORS          $308.7  $321.4
Note: Table made from bar graph
Sales per distribution center, in millions of dollars
                                 1999   2000
BUILDING MATERIAL DISTRIBUTORS  $17.8  $17.3
HARDLINES DISTRIBUTORS          $28.0  $30.1
Fluctuating lumber prices hit building materials wholesalers hard in
2000 -- excluding groups, total two-step sales fell 1.7 percent, sales
per employee fell 1.2 percent and sales per DC fell 2.9 percent.
Hardlines wholesalers, on the other hand, managed to grow in a down
year -- two-step sales rose 4.4 percent, sales per employee rose 4.1
percent and sales per DC rose 7.5 percent, excluding buying groups.
Note: Table made from bar graph

[Table omitted]

TWO-STEP SALES PERCENT
Even some big traditional distributors sell to end-users
Two-step sales as percent of 2000 revenue, all 150 companies
One-step sales (10.4%)   $5.23 bil.
Two-step sales (89.6%)  $45.22 bil.
Among the Top 150 two-step distributors, 15.1 percent of sales by
building materials companies went to end users, and 6.1 percent of
sales by hardlines companies went to end users. Only the buying groups
reproted no direct sales to end users.
Note: Table made from pie chart
INTERNET
A toe in e-commerce waters
Percent of the Top 150 distributors with Web sites and with e-commerce
With sites          (49%)
Without sites       (51%)
With e-commerce     (17%)
Without e-commerce  (83%)
Only half of the companies on the Distributors Scoreboard have an
Internet Web site. And even fewer actually engage in e-commerce online.
Note: Table made from pie chart