MERCHANT FOCUS: DAVIES BUILDERS MERCHANTS LOVE WHAT YOU DO
Fiona Russell Horne chats to a builders merchant in Wales whose happy place is…being a builders merchant.
S
ir Winston Churchill once said that if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. It’s a sentiment that resonates with Kevin DeBanks. The managing director of Davies Builders Merchants in Whitland, Wales, loves being a builder’s merchant so much he describes it as almost being like a hobby.
“I love it. It’s so varied. No day is the same. There’s the challenge of the negotiations, the wheeling and dealing,” he says. “That’s what really sparks my interest, the challenge of getting the right deal, the right sale. Plus, we really are a family firm. My wife Miliana, my mother Vie, my daughter Caroline, my nephew Jack, my son Gary, my son’s partner, Rad, who runs our new branch. We’re all involved.”
Now a proper mixed merchant, selling timber, building materials, landscaping products, kitchens and bathrooms, Davies Builders Merchants didn’t start life out in Wales. In 1988 DeBanks was working with his parents, Alan and Vie, at their three small DIY and hardware stores in the Twickenham, Middlesex area. Gradually, the business expanded, and the team decided that they wanted to develop, but would need to be somewhere where they could access more
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land to allow them to do that. Twickenham as an area just wasn’t going to play ball with that ambition.
“So we looked around. We weren’t wedded to the idea of Wales. We looked at around 12 locations, up and down the country, before settling on number 12 – which happened to be a small business in Whitland, Wales, called DL Davies, whose owners wanted to retire. We’ve been gradually progressing since then, adding on land as it became available and getting bigger and bigger.”
The larger the company grew, the more it was able to do in terms of stock. “In the early days, there were some things that we would buy in from other merchants, then, as well got more space we were able to take in more
stock so we could buy direct.” With the extra space for stockholding, DeBanks adds the company realised there was scope to do more, and started a wholesale arm to the business. “We realised that there were several smaller merchants around us, who would need stock that they maybe didn’t have room for at their premises So we started servicing them, then as we grew, we started attracting custom from some of the medium- sized merchants, and it went from there. We now have nine HGV lorries; seven vans and we can offer a delivery service in 24 hours. That’s how it grew,” he says.
The company radius for customers – on the wholesale side as well as the builder’s merchant’s business – could be up to around 50 miles, depending where customers are working, DeBanks says. “We haven’t got that many big housebuilders on our books, our biggest customers would be those builders and developers working on projects of about 10 to 12 properties. Then, of course, we deal with the general jobbing builders, and the DIY sector.”
There is a kitchen and bathroom showroom at Whitland, and smaller one has just been built at St Clear. The showroom side brings in a slightly different customer base, and
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net March 2025
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