Jeff McLendon, president and CEO of Specialty Building Products, says he wants to help inject ecommerce into a market where it’s sorely lacking: lumber and building materials dealers.
Jeff McLendon, president and CEO, Specialty Building Products
“We care about our dealer customers’ success,” he says. “And with ecommerce penetration at less than 1% amongst the average LBM dealer, we took it upon ourselves to bring a best-in-class solution to our customers.”
Specialty Building Products has teamed up with Toolbx Inc. to provide its network of dealers access to Toolbx’s digital commerce platform and related technology integration services.
Toolbx’s services include integrating digital commerce technology applications — including shopping carts, quoting, customer records, product catalogs and payments — with dealers’ enterprise resource planning systems, including Epicor BisTrack, DMSi, Intuit Quickbooks and Oracle NetSuite and Sandbox.
Erik Bornstein, CEO and cofounder of Toolbx, says the Toolbx digital platform is designed with “a suite of customer-facing tools that enable [dealers] to streamline operations, enhance customer service, and boost loyalty among their Pro or retail segment.”
Customers include The Home Depot and Do It Best
SPB has several operating brands, including U.S. Lumber, Alexandria Moulding, DW Distribution, Millwork Sales, Amerhart and Reeb, that provide LBM dealers with lumber, custom manufacturing and assembly of specialty building materials like doors, cabinets and outdoor decks, and marketing and distribution services.
McLendon says that “a number of our customers are already using Toolbx, and we want to make our product data available to them through Toolbx.” SPB and Toolbx did disclose the terms of their cooperative arrangement.
SPB’s largest customers include The Home Depot, Do It Best, Carter Lumber, Builders FirstSource and ABC Supply Co.
Toolbx notes on its website that it charges monthly subscription fees starting at $1,299 for its Commerce Pro system, which includes ecommerce, catalog development and support for onboarding customers. Its higher-end Pro Integrated version adds additional features, including syncing orders, price & inventory, invoice & payment, and customer tiers and accounts. It doesn’t publicize Pro Integrated’s fees.
Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. [email protected].
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