Money saving question/idea for contractors

[brad hays]

Hey there once again. My daytime job finds me at my buddy's 'cabinet shop' where no actual woodworking is done. We're a cabinet supplier with a little warehouse space to hold contractors' and clients' orders. We can order cabinets either built or flat pack unassembled. Over the last couple years working there I've asked a few contractors how much different the pricing would be if they got their cabinets unassembled instead of assembled...and most of them said they'd save about 50%. 100% of our contractors order them built btw. Building them is crazy easy but everybody opts to pay thousands more to have us put their cabinets together. A wall cabinet takes about 10 min to assemble and an average base about 15 min. We just delivered 20k worth of kitchen and bathroom cabinets to my other buddy's contract built house; it was about 32 cabinets altogether. If we were to have put together these same cabinets it would've taken us about a full day.

So you see where I'm getting to here? Why don't I advertise myself to contractors as the guy who's been building their cabinets for the last two years and see if they're willing to order unassembled, save a ton of money and pay me maybe half of what extra they would've spent? Sounds like a win win huh?

So my question is...what issues aren't I seeing yet with my idea? My contractor buddy who's helping me work on developing this says he doesn't think contractors will want to get into the minutia of adding a different step to the process they've already settled into...building houses the way they do. The way he put it is that contractors want to know one 'cabinet guy' who gets it all done from design to supply to installation. Almost all the contractors we deliver to also use our company's two installers, and my idea would make things a little bumpier for them. I'm sure lots of contractors in my city of 330k population have their own installers but my contractor buddy says that good installers are few and far in between. Of course, all I see is a big chunk of change to be made, for both me and the contractors, and I think they'll be interested in hearing about my idea.

Any thoughts? Thanks as always.

[Jim Koepke]

If a contractor goes along with your idea, what is to keep them from buying the flat packs from your supplier and cutting out the middle man (you)?

How much are you making per cabinet the way it is currently going compared to how much you will make as a middle man?

Then there is the hard to break habit of "this is the way we've always done this, why change now?

Right now, they are installing pre=made cabinets. You are asking them to take on the step of assembling before they install. One more step for them they may not want to have the hassle of doing.

The end customer may think they are getting custom cabinets. No matter how custom their cabinets may be, it is hard for them to see packaged cabinets site assembled as "high dollar custom cabinets."

Just my 518622

jtk

[ChrisA Edwards]

You possibly have an extra step of receiving and delivery. Can you deliver assembled cabinets.

What happens if you have multiple orders in the same time period and have a contractor who cannot pick up on time. Will you have space to store multiple orders of assembled cabinets?

Just a thought.

[Rich Engelhardt]

How is this going to affect the owner of the shop you are working at now?

You will need accounting, tax, legal and insurance advice before you go much farther.