Bulk Hardware Quantities/Pricing

Joe Dusel · Post by **Joe Dusel** » Fri, Feb 16 2007, 2:38PM

So, who else out there would like to see bulk hardware quantities and pricing? As it stands in the system some items are reasonably priced, but others are way high, like most of the Blum hardware. I would personally like to see if we could get it setup with some of the higher priced vendors to buy a box of parts such as hinges in a 50 pack (or whatever) and get a better deal on the pricing and shipping. I think that I would personally be more inclined to buy more of my hardware through the system if this were the case. I would like to buy most of my hardware through the eCabs co-op in the future, and I think this would be a step in the right direction.

What do you all think about this?

Joe

Michael S Murray · Post by **Michael S Murray** » Sat, Feb 17 2007, 4:57PM

Hi Joe,
I have talked to Eric about this and I beleive that he is working on it. I am not a huge company, but I do quite a bit of work and I buy everything in bulk qtys. For instance I buy hinges 300 at a time, I buy lazy suzans a dozen at time, I buy slides a hundred at time. I very rarely buy a couple of anything unless it is something special a customer has requested. I would love to be able to buy everything from e-cabs, but as one of the other recent posts was talking about shipping costs, I would not dream of paying shipping costs on staple items like above. I am like everyone else here, I do build everything custom, but I try to standardize everything like sheet goods, hardware and other interior fitting's. I have a couple of dispalys and as the saying goes, people will buy what you have displayed,so I display what I want to use and tell them the reason why I like the particular thing we are looking at, most people accept my opinion. (MOST) This allows me to buy in somewhat larger quantitys and keep my costs down some.

Brian Bauer · Post by **Brian Bauer** » Sun, Feb 18 2007, 11:56AM

Joe,
I am with you.
I am in california and the prices in dicounted mode are still higher than my jobber here in ca, not including the shipping they will add also.

The bulk idea would work if the companies would package for a small to mid size cabinet shop instead of an assembly line factory quantity.

I buy my blum slides by the 25 ct case, tip outs by the 10's, screws by the 1,000's but pretty much everthing else is on an as needed basis.

The one major drawback I seem to always be facing is shipping it is neither cheap nor effective( 1out of 5 2nd day deliveries actually arrives in 2 days).

I guess what I am trying to say is that price is the greatest motivator.
Kinda like most of our clients

Brian Bauer

Kerry Fullington · Post by **Kerry Fullington** » Sun, Feb 18 2007, 12:22PM

The problem I see with bulk pricing is what is \"Bulk\". There was a guy a couple of years ago that was trying to negotiate a price for a shipping container of hinges. Many many thousands of hinges. Is that Bulk or is 100 hinges bulk. Is 1000 hinges bulk or do you need to buy 5000 to get the pricing break.
Kerry

Mike Bowers · Post by **Mike Bowers** » Sun, Feb 18 2007, 12:55PM

I would say bulk is defined with case size by the manufacture, Blum packs a 250 ct case on some of there hinges. 500 ct on some plates. There Metabox comes in boxes of 10 & 5 ct. But with Metabox in bulk, I would say 5 cases at lease to be considered bulk.
Mike

Brian Bauer · Post by **Brian Bauer** » Sun, Feb 18 2007, 12:55PM

That's what i'm talking about Kerry,
The co-op is for small to large companies so how come the quantities can't be scaled to match a shops consuption.

Brian

Joe Dusel · Post by **Joe Dusel** » Sun, Feb 18 2007, 1:15PM

To me buying bulk is buying in a quantity sufficient to where the supplier will give us a price break. Some of the suppliers I deal with have different price points depending on the quantity and I assume a lot of that has to do with the sizes of the packages they get from the manufacturers. It is obviously easier for the supplier to grab a box of 1000 screws and ship it out versus having to count out an order for 225 screws or whatever. I'm also a small shop, so I don't buy stuff by the truckload, but I am willing to buy items I use on a regular basis in reasonable quantities in order to be cost effective. Some web sites with online ordering are setup such that when you enter various quantities of an item you can watch the price per part change, then you can select the quantity that works best for you. I think that something like this would work well for the member store.

Take a look at Woodworker's Hardware site. http://wwhardware.com/

Their prices are aimed at the hobbyist, but at least the software interface will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

Joe

Duane Marrett · Post by **Duane Marrett** » Mon, Feb 19 2007, 9:40AM

Hi Joe,

When the purchasing program was first created, we negotiated with our vendors to set the pricing so that customers received a lowered \"bulk\" price even when purchasing small quantities. This was to help smaller shops complete without needing to purchase in huge quantities. We are still going to offer these low prices on smaller quantities, but are also currently in negotiations with our vendors to be able to offer price breaks for purchasing in larger bulk quantities. The Member Store has the ability to display the discount you get for buying in bulk (below are example mock-ups of how it will appear on the store). Once we have these price breaks available, we will implement them on the Member Store and announce it to our Members.

Thanks everyone for your input and continued support. Letting us know what you would like to see on the Member Store drives our development.

View Quantity Discounts button lets you know that this item has price breaks when you purchase greater quantities:

Clicking on the View Quantity Discounts button brings up a window listing the bulk price breaks (note - this is off of the regular Woodworker's Wholesale price for this example):

After adding a certain amount to your shopping cart, the quantity price breaks are automatically applied to your order:

Eric Shearn · Post by **Eric Shearn** » Mon, Feb 19 2007, 10:08AM

As you can see we are working towards bulk pricing.
To help us out if anyone would like to email me items that they buy in bulk, we will use those as a starting point and build upon that. Please specify part number and quantity purchased as well as pricing received. Email to eric.shearn@thermwood.com

Thank You,
Eric
eric.shearn@thermwood.com

Joe Dusel · Post by **Joe Dusel** » Mon, Feb 19 2007, 10:17AM

Thanks guys! That sounds (and looks) great.

Joe