MERCHANT FOCUS: HB SUPPLIES
work with them separately. The retail side of things is catered to the general public which is where we are developing,” he said. Hibbert added “One thing we have added is an area to showcase modular buildings which have proved very popular, particularly since the pandemic. During the pandemic we only stopped trading for around two days because of the moral dilemma. All the other merchants stopped trading for around six weeks while we were still going, and we ended up supplying a lot of other people we never had before. We spoke to our staff about how they felt being open, and we wanted to make them feel as safe as possible with contactless signatures, sanitation, etc. The pandemic has really changed the way we run our business.”
Staying focused
According to Hibbert, narrowing the focus to just drainage and landscaping has benefitted the business. “Our product range is not typical of a builders merchant, we find the different products that people need and I’m always finding something new to bring into the yard. Some other builders merchants might have every product in store, but they’ll only have a bit of everything and they don’t have an expert in every department. We choose a supplier for one thing but we could have four suppliers for that same thing so we’ve got an element of flexibility.
“Most of our staff have been with us for a long time and that is because of the way we work and the atmosphere we’ve created. We’d rather work hard as a team and pay our staff better than work hard as a team and grow too big. Everyone that comes into the business gets trained in different ways and we’ve designed the training to be personal to the individual. I went through BMF training, and I’ve started to introduce that training more in my own business,” he says. With a four-acre site, it could be tempting to
Our product range is not typical of a builders merchant, we find the different products that people need and I’m always finding something new to bring into the yard.”
bring in lots of other building materials to fill the space, but Hibbert believes the company is respected because of its narrow focus. “If somebody looked at it from the outside, they might want us to do everything but I don’t think we’d be as successful as we are,” he says.
The right product
A key part of the success of HB Supplies was its rigorous product selection process and its efforts to stay ahead of the game. Hibbert says: “The industry is fantastic, it’s always changing. I’ve been in the industry for 38 years and one of the most interesting things is navigating through recessions, price increases and price drops. When prices go up you have to try and get ahead of the game and when prices drop you can get so much more business out of it. It’s a bit like the stock market in some ways and there’s a buzz in trying to find the right price to sell a product. That’s why buying in bulk works but when the prices are high you have to be careful. For example, at the end of 2021, shipping prices were ridiculous from India. We generally sell sandstone at around £20 but because of shipping costs we had to sell it at around £30 which became an unrealistic price. A lot of people have still got stock which they cannot sell at the right price because they made a mistake in buying too much at that time. That’s where we’re a bit different, we saw it coming.”
To celebrate the business’ 15th anniversary year, HB Supplies has launched a series of new own-branded products. “In recent
April 2023
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years we have had a huge push on our own- branded products, such as Flood Crates, Easi-Chambers inspection chambers, Easi-Roll paving products and more - many of which we are the sole distributor of in the UK. We foresaw the shift to more sustainable drainage and building methods over the past few years and have capitalised in the rise of environmentally friendly engineering products, which has given our business a huge boost. With the increased rainfall in this country, sustainable drainage is a huge issue. The rainfall can’t always go into the rivers so it goes into the ground in some way and gets let out of the ground through pipes, crates or different systems. For around 25 years, I’ve been an instigator in developing these products, and in this time we’ve developed our own products which we sell to big merchants like Travis Perkins,” he adds. As part of its 15th year in trading, the business is expanding once again, with the introduction of composite building materials to its product range. HB Supplies now specialises in composite cladding, roofing, fencing, verandas and housing extensions plus modular construction boards and panels. Hibbert concludes: “We are extremely excited for what the future holds for HB. We are a close-knit team and are always looking for new ways to expand and grow our knowledge. With our latest exclusive products, we will become one of the top distributors of composite products in the country; which is an amazing prospect for us.” BMJ
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