My plywood supplier in Naperville jacked up prices by 40% overnight last month

I called to place my usual order for Baltic birch and the guy said it's now $89 a sheet instead of $63. How are you guys dealing with these wild price swings without passing it all to the customer?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole35613d ago

Switched to a mix of MDO and standard ACX plywood for stuff that doesn't need to look perfect. Baltic birch is still my go-to for cabinets and visible work, but I started buying it in bulk from a wholesale supplier out of Chicago instead of my local guy. That dropped the price back to around $71 a sheet. For the rest, I just eat the smaller increases on materials and factor them into my hourly rate instead of marking up every single job. My customers barely noticed the difference honestly.

sean78213d ago

Buying in bulk from a wholesaler is the move, especially when local prices get stupid like that.

alice8913d ago

Did you catch that article in Fine Homebuilding last month about pricing psychology? They talked about how most customers don't actually track material costs sheet by sheet, they just care about the final number. I mean, it makes sense why your strategy works. Bundling the price increases into the hourly rate is way smoother than itemizing every 3 dollar jump on a sheet of plywood, especially since lumber prices bounce around so much.