Directory For Lumber Suppliers?

[Stewart Lang]

Hey there Creekers, wanted to get your opinions on this...

So, some friends and I are in the process of making a website.

It's basically like Google Maps but completely dedicated to sawmills and kilns and lumberyards and other places. Imagine you need to find a source for a large order of a specific wood, or you're travelling to a new area and want to find good places to check out, or you need to find a kiln, etc. You can go to this website and have everything all mapped out for you. Each different location will have all the essential details easy to see. What they sell, how much, what they offer, etc.

We're working on adding a feature that can filter based on species. So if you're looking at lumberyards and want to filter only ones that sell and ship Sapele for instance, you can do that.

Think this is a good idea? Would you ever use it? Some of you may have a local lumberyard that you use exclusively so that you may not need it, I realize that.

And yes, you can just use Google Maps, but the problem for me is it only brings up like 10 locations at a time, so you have to search in very small areas at a time. This would have the whole country laid out easy to see, not to mention easy details to see.

We just put a few random locations on there to give an idea of what it'd be like. Let me know what you think, just wanna gauge interest before we put too much work into it :D

[Mark Bolton]

It'd seem advantageous more so to small batches and custom sawyers/buyers but I see you have LTL on there as well so who knows if you were to get traction across the board. There are several broker options to track down and source larger quantity (singlepacks through TL). For me personally it may be handy to find local sources for very small quantities and odd stuff but the hard part we've found (being in business) is the smaller quantity materials are usually coming out of drying setups (domestic) we cant be confident in. Its not an offense to a small drying operation but when you have liability involved you just wind up buying from a large commercial sawing/drying operation and taking the hit either on price or quantity.

[Stewart Lang]

It'd seem advantageous more so to small batches and custom sawyers/buyers but I see you have LTL on there as well so who knows if you were to get traction across the board. There are several broker options to track down and source larger quantity (singlepacks through TL). For me personally it may be handy to find local sources for very small quantities and odd stuff but the hard part we've found (being in business) is the smaller quantity materials are usually coming out of drying setups (domestic) we cant be confident in. Its not an offense to a small drying operation but when you have liability involved you just wind up buying from a large commercial sawing/drying operation and taking the hit either on price or quantity.

Interestingly the idea for the site sparked because we were trying to find larger professionals sawmills that can help supply us with LTL orders in the range of 3-5kbdft at a time. We don't have the room to buy full TL's but buying LTL in that quantity is significantly cheaper than our local lumberyards. But we figured if we can make the site to accommodate what just about any woodworker of any size would need, it might succeed.

[John K Jordan]

Don't know if it will help but you might look at the way Woodfinder.com does it. They don't have a map, though. I think suppliers and sawmills pay a fee to be included.

Seems like it would be a nightmare to keep such a directory up to date, especially if it included inventory and pricing.

[Stewart Lang]

Don't know if it will help but you might look at the way Woodfinder.com does it. They don't have a map, though. I think suppliers and sawmills pay a fee to be included.

Seems like it would be a nightmare to keep such a directory up to date, especially if it included inventory and pricing.

We wouldn't include actual inventory or pricing. That fluctuates too much. Just basically "Let us know what species you carry or want people to contact you about". That's how we'd do base the filter. Actual inventory and pricing they'd have to contact the location.

Woodfinder.com seems to have the similar idea, but it lacks some information it seems, and I think a map is much more intuitive and visual. Also it seems pretty expensive for what it does. $300/year? We were looking at charging $5/month...

[Mark Bolton]

Interestingly the idea for the site sparked because we were trying to find larger professionals sawmills that can help supply us with LTL orders in the range of 3-5kbdft at a time. We don't have the room to buy full TL's but buying LTL in that quantity is significantly cheaper than our local lumberyards. But we figured if we can make the site to accommodate what just about any woodworker of any size would need, it might succeed.

I agree that that's a great notion but (and this is only my experience) there seem to be very few operations out there that are willing to deal on that level. Im lucky to be pulling from a huge facility that I am basically a nuisance to. 3-8MBf is a waste of their time and they are just doing me a favor so I try to make it as painless as possible. Minimal questions, send a truck in, load, out of their way asap, payment in full, no terms.

Most that Ive found that deal in small quantities are either insanity on price or so small its a stretch. But again, would seem a great resource for sure.

[Matt Day]

I think it could be useful, but would need to be thorough and accurate. Wood finder, is not.

Trying to do this for the whole country will be an imposing task. I’ve lived in my current small city for almost 3 years and barely know the local yards let alone pricing.

Are you just going to pull data from every hit for “lumber” or “hardwood” that Google maps generates?

[Stewart Lang]

I think it could be useful, but would need to be thorough and accurate. Wood finder, is not.

Trying to do this for the whole country will be an imposing task. I’ve lived in my current small city for almost 3 years and barely know the local yards let alone pricing.

Are you just going to pull data from every hit for “lumber” or “hardwood” that Google maps generates?

Appreciate the feedback Matt. So it's mostly automated. When a location or business owner signs up, they have to fill out a form which asks questions about what kind of business they are, address, hours, contact info, what they have in-stock, sell, services they offer, etc. Basically every piece of info we need. That then gets inputted into their spot on the map.

Actual inventory tallies and pricing (i.e. any "moving parts") we won't have deal with. You'll have to get in touch with the location. But the idea is this will be a relatively well-sorted and easy to use directory for finding new places.

[Mark Bolton]

Appreciate the feedback Matt. So it's mostly automated. When a location or business owner signs up, they have to fill out a form which asks questions about what kind of business they are, address, hours, contact info, what they have in-stock, sell, services they offer, etc. Basically every piece of info we need. That then gets inputted into their spot on the map.

Actual inventory tallies and pricing (i.e. any "moving parts") we won't have deal with. You'll have to get in touch with the location. But the idea is this will be a relatively well-sorted and easy to use directory for finding new places.


The unfortunate part about that is that is kinda currently available. I can find suppliers in the region that "have dealt" in sapele but I want to know what they have on-hand (if any), minimums, and so on. That sort of a dynamic database is monumental and I dont think even the monsters in the import/export market would ever put the effort in to feed the database.

Not wanting to poo poo a sign-on directory of suppliers. Anything is worth a shot. Make sure you can filter by production level and so on. That would seem to be imperative to court larger and smaller demand users. Having the ability to filter our solar kiln, HT, DH, etc..

[Stewart Lang]

The unfortunate part about that is that is kinda currently available. I can find suppliers in the region that "have dealt" in sapele but I want to know what they have on-hand (if any), minimums, and so on. That sort of a dynamic database is monumental and I dont think even the monsters in the import/export market would ever put the effort in to feed the database.

Not wanting to poo poo a sign-on directory of suppliers. Anything is worth a shot. Make sure you can filter by production level and so on. That would seem to be imperative to court larger and smaller demand users. Having the ability to filter our solar kiln, HT, DH, etc..

No no I really do appreciate the feedback, keep it coming.

See, I don't necessarily view it as a way to keep tabs on your local suppliers. A simple
phone call can handle that. Rather I see it as a way to say "Hey, there's 3 local suppliers who I've gotten this species from, but there's also 10 in neighboring states that would be willing to ship the same species to me" and after a few phone calls (because you already know before you call that a) they're willing to ship and b) they have that species) you realize "Hey I can get it for 20% less from one of them, even with shipping."

I've experienced those discounts myself and so I see it as having a large database to draw quotes from. Or perhaps you need a rare, exotic species and you can't find anyone who carries it. Well you just click the filter and there's 8 locations in the US that have it and are willing to ship, etc.

I suppose there are 1 or 2 other websites that do that, but the idea is this is more visual, refined and detailed about what each location has and is willing to do.

Sounds nice in my head at least lol..

[Mark Bolton]

Phone calls in this day and age are completely wasted time. And busy mills may likely never answer the phone in the first place. I can email mill and in 15 minutes I can have on-the-yard quantities in pack sizes and a sub breakdown on each pack, how many 8" wide boards, 6" wide boards. 12" wide boards in each given pack and i can pick which of those packs best suits my job to the inch.

[Wayne Cannon]

You can always provide additional information suppliers are willing to add along with the date it was last updated, so users can evaluate whether the information is sufficiently current. A cutoff date on old information could be persisted per user in a "cookie".

If suppliers find your site beneficial, they will keep the info current, which will give you a metric on how well your site is serving the suppliers as well as customers.

[George Yetka]

You could set it up so it allowed the sellers to adjust approximate inventory daily or weekly. More sellers than not will most likely not update/login/be apart of it. For those you could classify them by general size.

Another idea would be to make it something like Waze allowing users to add locations and keep things updated. IE they can spot a sawmill going down the road and add it. If that guy shuts down another user can tell it that it is no longer there and ask a 3rd party to confirm.

[Matt Day]

I go to a lot of smaller yards since I don’t buy in bulk. Relying on those little guys to sign up for your website and keeping updated quantities is asking a lot.

Maybe the bigger places and those that sell online would be achievable, but not the little guys. Heck, the Amish guys I used to buy from weren’t even online.