PARTNER PROFILE NO TIME LIKE THE
RIGHT TIME T
Without help from National Buying Group, fledgling merchant Habco might have still opened, but it wouldn’t be in the healthy state it is now, as the Directors tell Fiona Russell-Horne.
here’s a school of thought that says setting up a business in a recession is a good move, because you can get all your early-days mistakes out of the way while things are quieter, and that if you can survive then, you can thrive when things get better.
Habco Building Supplies, a one-branch heavyside independent in Wakefield, didn’t open in a recession, but the circumstances weren’t exactly ideal either. In June 2020, two builders’ merchants, Dan Harbidge and Gareth Bates, opened the doors of their branch in Wakefield. It was less than three months after the Prime Minister had announced the first UK lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. The pair had worked for many years for James Wilby Builders Merchants, the acquisition of which in April 2017 was the first foray into Yorkshire of Huws Gray. “We’ve got great memories of being at James Wilby, before and after the acquisition, and we still have friends and relatives still working there,” says Bates. That said, the entrepreneurial spirit that independent merchant businesses are so good at nurturing, was still flickering in the pair, and when a suitable premises cropped up, they took the plunge.
“We knew that if we didn’t take up the opportunity, we would always have wondered what could have been if we had,” he adds. “When you’ve worked for an independent for 25 years that then becomes part of a much bigger company, you have to get used to a different way of doing things. We enjoyed working under the Huws Gray banner, but we still had that urge to do things our own way.” It took about six months to find the right site, Bates says, and a further six to get the business up and running. Habco - which is amalgam of the directors’ surnames - then opened the doors in June 2020 right in the middle of the lockdown, although after the
20
Government had decreed merchants to be an essential service, so it was a bit of a difficult start. “We did wonder, of course, at points whether we were doing the right thing but we were so far down the road that we knew we had to keep going,” Bates admits. In a way, opening in lockdown was a benefit, he adds, as it allowed them to get the inevitable teething issues out of the way. “Everyone, from Suppliers, customers, and merchants to competitors, was having to almost make things up as they went along, whether they were long-established companies or new ones like ours,” he adds. The company joined NBG in the November which Bates says came at a really good time. “We were struggling slightly with getting supplies at that time. The supply situation in general was very difficult for most people, let alone a new company that had only been trading a few months. We knew NBG and had relationships with many of the companies from when James Wilby was a member, so it made sense for us to apply to join the group and that put us in good stead.”
Harbidge says the company operates mainly on the heavyside with a turnover of around £4m from one branch in Wakefield, currently employing 10 people. The general product areas are heavyside: bricks and blocks, roofing and timber for local builders doing renovations
and extension work. “A builder doing half- a-dozen houses a year is about as big as our customer base gets at the moment. That means we don’t do very much on direct to site, it’s much more about the collect business and delivered business,” he says.
“All the builders we deal with tend to be within a five to ten miles of the branch but we will deliver anywhere in Yorkshire or even anywhere in the north of England if it’s one of our regular customers that’s asking for it. It’s all about customer service with us, whatever the customer wants they get.“
Partnership with NBG has really helped the company with its customer service ethic, Bates says. “Joining so early on in our existence really did help us with the supply shortages and, because of our previous experience with the group under James Wilby, once we’d joined it didn’t feel quite as new because so much of it was familiar. So, we were able to really play our part in the group and benefit in return. The cement shortage is a case in point, I really think that without being in NBG we would have been left high and dry.”
Harbidge adds that Habco’s timber sales, too, have really benefited from joining NBG. “Being part of the group opened doors for us overnight. We went from having one local guy supplying our timber to 10 companies, all geared up to supply companies like ours. So that was a huge change for the better.” Then of course there are buying deals and the whole NBG infrastructure that the company can tap into, which both directors say has made a huge difference to the business. Bates adds: “The deals, of course, are only a part of it and we have learned a lot from our membership already – things like advice on vehicles, forklifts and how to get the best from our computer system. These are all aspects that that we never had a chance to look at because we were so busy running the business, and doing our own deals.
“Now, by being able to be part of NBG, we are being pushed in the right direction. While we are putting the time in to play our part fully, we are also getting it back in other areas. It’s a massive benefit that we wouldn’t be able to be without now.”
January 2023
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
