Timbergreen vs The Big Box
I just love a sale! Can’t resist buying something cheap.
But in my business, I do resist selling our wood cheap.
All my neighbors sell their wood to the traditional timber industry, at prices way too low for forest management to be considered a regular money maker. Their wood enters the global markets and often travels around the world before coming back to a store in Madison, where they go buy it back on sale!
When Shawn and I visited Vietnam last October, we saw walnut, red oak, red elm, and white oak logs from Wisconsin being veneered and manufactured into engineered flooring and furniture. The walnut looked so familiar, I couldn’t help but believe – I know that tree! They very likely could have been trees that I had managed from 1989 to 2003 on the Marshall Erdman farm just south of Spring Green. (many walnut trees have been sold off there the last few years….) These manufactured products are what we see when we shop in Madison at the flooring supply store or other Big Boxs.
From what I see, The Big Box Stores are destroying our communities. Our fondness for buying stuff cheap outweighs our desire to support local businesses. I think it always will, I personally love a sale and can’t resist. And a boycott of the BBSs just won’t work – and some things just need to be mass produced – like my electronic tools and toys. But timber products and many food items are perfect for local manufacturing and direct marketing in the community.
I have no fear of the BBSs,
despite being the smallest of flooring stores around.
They can’t compete with me!
I know my wood! I can tell a potential customer anything they want to know.
Its my own wood! And I own it until the customer is thrilled to pay me retail prices.
Our wood is the natural output of our forest. Every harvest improves our timber crop for the future.
Wood is moved an average of 1000 yards – 1 Km - during the entire manufacturing process. Minimal amounts of energy are used and the wood is in its most natural form possible.
Our wood is hauled one time to the customer’s home, as we commute to work.
(about 33% of the cost of wood products at the BBS is shipping around the world!)
We install our products in the customer’s home – service and satisfaction are guaranteed.
Our customers show off their flooring and sell our next floor for us – for free!
Not even Walmart pays their sales staff less than me!
So, I may go to Walmart and buy something cheap, but you will not find me selling my timber at a cheap price - into the system that subsidizes their huge corporate profits!
Birky