Wood Vendor Checklist – 4 Ways to Narrow Down Your Supplier Search

Choosing the right wood vendor can seem like a daunting task. With hundreds of options, an unpredictable market, and your own unique business needs, choosing a wood vendor isn’t always easy. Luckily, we’ve come up with four key factors that you can use when choosing the best wood vendor for your business.

1. Supply:  One of the first questions that need to be asked of a potential wood vendor is, “Do you have the supply that I need?” Considering wood vendors are essentially wood suppliers, you would think this would be an easy question to answer. Unfortunately, nowadays supply shortages continue to plague the lumber and industrial wood industries, as well as many others.

COVID, wildfires, tariffs, and more continue to limit the amount of wood actively in the market. This unprecedented situation has unfortunately come hand-in-hand with some of the largest demand the lumber and industrial wood industries have ever seen.

Vetting wood vendors to see if they have the appropriate supply for your business will surely cut down the number of contenders on your plate.

2. Capability:  Capability and supply sound a tad synonymous but bear with me. Capability not only encompasses the ability to have supply but expounds on it.

Every business wants something a little different out of their wood vendor. Whether it’s cut industrial lumber, wood packaging, or other industrial wood products, businesses always have unique needs when it comes to wood. Finding a wood vendor that can fill all of these needs simultaneously can be extremely beneficial not only financially, but logistically as well.

Ordering wood and industrial wood products in one go can save you time and money in your orders and transportation.

3. Transportation:  Wood isn’t necessarily the easiest, or cheapest, product to transport. Because of this, making sure your wood vendor has the ability to get your product where it needs to be in a cost-effective and timely manner is essential.

Having a wood vendor that works with you in regard to transportation can be a lifesaver. The cost of fuel in the United States is up and the labor shortage continues, having a wood vendor that works with you to transport your goods can be the difference between a project done on time and a project plagued with delays.

Aside from the general complications of transportation, having a wood vendor with multiple locations can be a huge benefit as well. If a wood vendor has multiple locations across the United States, this makes transportation much less of an issue.

4. Dependability:  If there’s one thing in business that’s important, it’s dependability. Wood and industrial wood products are vital to getting jobs done. Whether it’s wood to build with or pallets to move material with, it’s important that businesses are able to trust their wood vendor to provide their products in a prompt manner.

Now, dependability is kind of a tough attribute to measure, right? It’s largely qualitative and hard to know if you’re not yet a customer. The best way to determine a wood vendor’s dependability is simply to look at a company’s track record.

How large is this wood vendor? Is it generally successful? What type of industries does this wood vendor work with? All of these questions can be used to determine the dependability of wood vendors without ever saying a word to them. Doing a quick check of the wood vendor’s website should be able to tell you a lot about the company’s values, history, and what they’re doing now. If all of these factors check out, there’s a good chance you’ve found a dependable wood vendor without ever getting an order.

Although there are many factors that are considered when choosing a wood vendor, we believe that between supply, capability, transportation, and dependability, businesses should definitely be able to narrow down the list. Choosing a wood vendor can seem like a daunting task, but we hope with this checklist it’s become a little easier.