I know you honest fella’s wouldn’t steal a man’s business idea but this is the cheapest market study I could find. I don’t believe anybody in my area is doing this.
I’m in a booming construction market(residential and commercial) in the southeast. If I had a truck(it’s a 3/4 ton diesel) that could tow a trailer with something as large as a minitrackhoe or a large pile of lumber or anything smaller and a dump trailer and maybe a box truck in the fleet, could a business thrive on running construction related errands and pickups/deliveries for contractors of all kinds? Local and regional pickup/deliveries/hauling could be available without having to hire the big trucking companies.
Would it be worth it to you if I could pickup/deliver/haul it for the same or less than you or your helper could do it for? Would you call?
Say at the end of the day you realized you were going to be 2 – 4×12 sheets of sheetrock short for the next day, would you be willing to call and let me pick it up and deliver it to your job site if the price was right so you could go home for the night and not have to worry about it in the morning?
Having worked as a superintendent and also as a self-employed carpenter there has many times where I could foresee that I was going to need something and just hated the thought of having to leave the jobsite or get home to my kids late because of having to go after it. Many times I also knew that if I sent someone else that they were going to come back with the wrong thing or they didn’t have the right vehicle or they were going to show up 4 hours later from a 1 hour trip.
Opinions? Yea’s or Nea’s? Or am I as crazy as my wife says I am?
Replies
how would you price this? by the hour? by percentage of material cost? what if i was finishing a corian counter install and needed just that one tube of seamfill?
Sounds like a good idea. If you have the capacity in your vehicle you might be able to store some materials that are always needed. How about a few tools and accessories that we always need, saw blades, generator etc. I would gladly pay more for a couple of sheets of plywood or whatever if I didn't have to stop working to go after it.
mike
This has been talked about here, where it can be a long way to the lumber yard. It would be an extremely challenging business, IMO. The cost of bringing a couple of sheets of plywood way out to a job could easily double the cost of plywood, and I think that after a few times your customers would learn to be better planners so that they didn't have to call you.
The model I might suggest is what I believe Snap-On Tools does. They have a fully stocked truck, and they make the rounds of the shops. Mechanics working there check out what's on the truck and buy stuff they need. You could do a similar thing in construction tools and materials (at least the smaller materials). Get yourself a wholesale dealership relationship and stock your truck, drive around and hit the jobsites, see what the guys need. Get yourself set up to take credit cards too.
Overall I think retail is an incredibly competitive business and you would have to provide a service that people can barely live without. Otherwise they'll simply plan better and hit the lumberyard in the morning.
I would probably charge by the mile plus a small percentage of the material cost for time spent loading and unloading.
The model it would be based on would be like the taxi company I used to drive for in college. It was a shared cab system where you charged say $2.75 just to get in and then it was .75 a mile after that. If another call came in near where your first pickup was or somewhere on the way and they were dropping off near where your first rider was going, you would get them too and make more on the ride. Sometimes it worked out great, 2 sometimes 3 different passengers at a time. Sometimes it was hardly worth the 12 hours I spent driving 1 passenger around at a time.
I would try to combine pickups and dropoffs and accomodate the builders schedule as much as possible at the same time.
I like the idea of keeping small amounts of daily construction needs on the truck so that maybe I could make some sales when I get to the sight.
Thanks for the opinions so far.
I second the box-truck loaded with stuff idea. I can't see making a run with a heavy duty vehicle for a few sheets of something as being profitable for long. But, cruising the job sites with a box truck loaded with nails, adhesives, caulk, some hand tools, blades, what-not and sundry could be useful but you'd have to sell a certain amount to be profitable. But then you could throw a coffee maker in there with doughnuts...I wonder if that would fall under township "peddling" ordinances? I know that most roach-coaches have to have an agreement from the GC ahead of time.
As far as running HD errands, you'd have to get your phone# out to alot of people and have multiple vehicles running. If I call you twice and you're on the other side of the county running another delivery I may not call again. I'd expect to run late days and early mornings, perhaps if several guys called you with a list they need by next morning, you could grab several orders but you would have to be able to drop off before work started and still get someone to sign for the payment.
If you're trying to replace the college-summer work knucklehead who gets the lunch order but does it so he can say he "worked construction" to his girlie's, well good luck. We have enough trouble gettin' them to hang around long...
Interesting idea though, with creativity and hard work I hope it works out for you.
I work in a hotel and we have a vendor that has a business similar to what you're talking about, except he caters to factory, hotel, hospital maintenance departments. The business has two owners, one stays in the office all day, one in the truck. Employees are a part time secretary and a driver. The owner who is in the truck stops by once a week, when he drops stuff off and takes orders for the next week.
If we need something right away, we can usually call and they can get it to us the next day. He doesn't charge for mileage or anything, just charges more than HD prices. More like Grainger prices, without the shipping. But the right away stuff is not what he makes his money on. It's the occasional $1,000 order we give him. We give it to him because he's always there for us if we need him.
I think if a customer saw a bunch of mileage charges, he would try to use you as little as possible. But if he saw a box of screws for $6.00 that he could get at HD for $5.00, if he noticed the difference at all, he would be glad to pay a bit more for having someone that was dependable.
Some 10 years ago, Moore's lumber tried that box-truck w/tools deal.
Thats where I bought my first air-gun.But Moore's is a good size company and would'nt stand to loose much if tools did'nt sell.
A couple of years ago there was an article, probably in Tools of the Trade or JLC about a company that did that out west.I think that it was in CO.IIRC it was just fasteners and tools. But it would make sense to also caulks and construction adhesives.
kinda off the subject...
but there was an old guy who had a school bus stocked to the hilt with everything a person could need.. household stuff, drugstore stuff, and food... even had a refrigerated secton... and he had a route at the projects and places people lived that lacked transportation... he even did special orders... the guy was always there and did well... put 3 kids through school and lived in a nice area...
i guess if you offer a service others don't and are fair u can do well... as for building materials... I always wonder when I see a lumber truck pull up... with 2 guys and 20 2x4's how much it really cost to make that delivery... the lumber yard had to lose money... truck... fuel... insurance.. wages... ect... around here a while back a few of the drywall co's had guys with trucks they paid to deliver drywall...think they paid em by the sheet... and they'd hit the customer for another $1 a sheet to carry it upstairs...
p