VIEWPOINT


WHY DIGITAL SHOULD STRENGTHEN MERCHANT


OPERATIONS, NOT SIDELINE THEM Al Ward, VP of commerce at Brave Bison


DIGITAL CHANGE IN builders’ merchants has often been framed in a way that makes people defensive before the work has even begun. It gets talked about as though a better website, cleaner product data or stronger self-serve tools somehow put the core of the business at risk. That framing creates friction and misses the point.


The issue is not whether physical operations still matter. They clearly do. Merchant teams need to be supported properly by the systems around them. In too many cases, people are still spending time answering avoidable calls, chasing stock information, checking order status and piecing together product details that should already be easy to find.


Digital development is less dramatic than it sounds. It is about removing tension, giving customers more certainty and freeing teams up to do the work that actually builds loyalty and revenue. Done properly, digital should fit around existing operations in a way that feels practical and manageable, rather than forcing businesses into change for its own sake.


Merchant operations under pressure There is still a tendency to treat digital as a separate agenda, or worse, as something that competes with the people and processes already keeping the business moving.


In reality, the profile of the trade customer is evolving. Fewer customers now rely exclusively on the trade counter, with digital channels increasingly part of the purchasing journey. That does not mean they are looking for a glossy ecommerce experience in the consumer sense. They want speed, clarity and confidence. They need


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to find products without calling, trust the pricing they are shown and reorder quickly when time is tight. If that experience is clunky, they pick up the phone instead, or start looking elsewhere. That broader shift is not unique to this sector. McKinsey’s B2B Pulse found that buyers now expect a full omnichannel experience and use an average of ten interaction channels across the buying journey. It also found that a company’s website is one of the three most frequently used touchpoints, alongside in-person sales and video interactions. The website should be seen as part of the human relationship, not a threat to it.


Merchants can spend months working through platform selection, procurement and rollout, only to find that buyers who have ordered the same way for years do not suddenly change their habits. Adoption comes when the experience is built around how customers already buy, not how the company wishes they would.


Time lost to low-value work


Good digital systems should take pressure off frontline teams by reducing the routine friction that slows everything down. When customers can find what they need quickly and move forward with confidence, teams are left with more space to focus on the work that strengthens relationships and drives revenue.


Every phone call carries a cost. It is not just the time spent on hold. It is the interruption to experienced teams and the hours spent solving simple tasks instead of more valuable problems. When too much of the day gets swallowed by basic order queries, stock checks and repeat requests, scale becomes harder to achieve and


“ Digital development is less dramatic than it sounds. It is about removing tension, giving customers more certainty and freeing teams up to do the work that actually builds loyalty and revenue.”


service becomes harder to protect. There is still a lot of room to improve. Research suggests digitally engaged customers are more valuable and more loyal, yet digital revenue remains relatively low across the sector. For many merchants, that points to untapped operational gains as much as untapped sales. The strongest systems create their own momentum over time. What starts as a portal becomes part of the workflow, then part of the customer habit.


Product data is not back-office admin Product data rarely gets much attention until it starts causing damage. In builders’ merchants, that damage shows up fast. Get the dimensions, specification or availability wrong and the fallout is immediate: delayed jobs, wasted money and weaker trust in the merchant behind it.


Better product data helps customers find what they need faster, but it also helps teams work with more confidence. When the right information is easier to access, less experienced colleagues are better supported, and day- to-day selling becomes more consistent across the business. The challenge now is not just having the data. It is organising it properly and getting it to flow cleanly across the business. Product data has to move between systems, teams and channels


without becoming distorted, duplicated or outdated along the way. Accuracy still matters, but so does orchestration.


Going digital doesn’t require a rebuild Digital still gets resisted because many merchants hear the word and picture a long, expensive and disruptive transformation programme. That is often what slows progress before it has even started. A more useful route is usually phased and practical. Start with the business objective, understand where friction sits in the customer journey, fix the pressure points first, then build from there.


That matters especially for larger organisations, where the barriers are not always about appetite. Sometimes the business already knows the platform is falling short, but replacing it feels almost impossible. Shared infrastructure, multiple regions, internal approvals and competing priorities create inertia that keeps outdated systems in place long after their limitations are obvious. It is more useful to think about digital as something that improves how the business runs overall. It should support day-to-day operations, rather than sit off to one side as a separate initiative. Progress is more likely to come from using digital well in the day to day than from building the most impressive setup. BMJ


www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net July 2026


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