TIMBER
“WE STOCK IT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO”
As demand grows for higher specification timber products, James Latham tells Oliver Stanley how it helps merchants deliver.
B
uilders’ merchants are increasingly being required to extend their offer beyond their core ranges. This shift raises a practical question for many businesses: how to supply specialist materials without taking on excessive stock risk. To address this, timber and panel distributor, James Latham partnered with builders merchant Bradfords Building Supplies to help it move towards a more consolidated supply model.
Meeting demand
Previously, Bradfords was working with a broad range of suppliers to cover different product categories. However, this left the business balancing expanding its range to meet demand, with avoiding capital tied up in stock.
James Latham panel merchant specialist, Stuart Devoir, explains: “One of the things that came through was that specialist products, which can be reasonably expensive, are quite slow-moving stock. This can cost merchants a lot of money and doesn’t help cash flow. So, we thought, since we’re going to stock it anyway, we can give them access to that stock, and use it to broaden out the range of product that merchants can offer.” The key shift was moving away from branch-led stock holding. Instead of committing capital to slower-moving lines,
branches use the distributor’s inventory as an extension of their own. This enables merchants to respond to demand without carrying significant local stock. A strategy aligned with Lathams’ campaign strapline for the merchant sector: ‘We stock it so you don’t have to’. Devoir comments: “We’ve used ‘We Stock it so you don’t have to’ for probably two years, since we started looking at the reasons why people work with us and realized that our 12 distribution depots around the country are able to hold so much more stock than your average merchant. We ran a merchant’s campaign a couple of years ago with that strap line and it took off.”
At the same time, ordering patterns shifted. Instead of placing larger stock orders, branches moved towards smaller, more regular purchases aligned with customer demand. This reduced the amount of capital tied up in inventory while maintaining access to a broader range of products.
The company’s delivery output supported this model, allowing for smaller, more frequent orders aligned to customer requirements rather than forecasts. James Latham’s group timber and panel merchant specialist, Andrew Jones, says: “Bradfords’ branch network runs from Worcester in the north to Penzance in the south, and across to Dorset and Hampshire in the east. The majority of their work is
deployed by our Depo in Bristol but we can also use our facilities in Fareham and Dudley. we offer a 48 / 72-hour service on stock items, and our depos are on a 24/7 shift pattern, allowing us to run a night shift picking system so we can take next day orders up to about 4 o’clock.”
Additionally, delivery schedules were structured to support this approach. James Latham’s 24/5 depot operations enable relatively short lead times and reduced the need for speculative stockholding. “We’ve recently updated our computer system, which now includes a journey planner system,” Jones continues, “That’s been a really useful tool for us. Now everybody within the business can see what’s going and when, and we can jiggle around with our teams to make sure we can meet our customers’ requirements.”
“We operate with Bistrack Global and by coincidence, Bradfords already operated on the same system. As such, we have very good data flow between the two companies using that system. We’re working together at an IT level, a sales level and an operations level to tailor our supply to meet their requirements.” Devoir adds: “This system allows our sales team to see the soonest shipments when they make an order, and if there’s room on the lorry, they can put it on. That increased visibility makes us more flexible.”
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www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net June 2026
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