Samac shares its experience of exclusively dealing with independents merchants, and why the business decided to do this.
Samac is an importer and distributor of general fixings. It was founded over 20 years ago, starting as a regional supplier to builders’ merchants in Essex. It quickly realised the opportunity for expansion and now operates across the UK, ranging from Cornwall to Scotland.
But this is also a story about strategic choices. When looking at its national customer base, Samac found that it built its strongest working relationships with companies that mirrored its own set-up and ethos – and these were consistently the independents. So Samac made a strategic decision to focus here and now only supplies the independent merchants sector.
Independent merchants commonly provide a more tailored service to their customers because of their in-depth regional knowledge. This allows Samac to ensure its products are being stocked by people who really know their sectors, and will only recommend them when it is the right fit for a customer.
A localised approach
When working with independents, Samac has built personal relationships with the decision-makers who know their local customers’ requirements. This close connection is something Samac believes might have been harder to achieve within a larger corporate structure.
One area Samac specialises in is roofing fixings, which is a very regional product category: requirements in Yorkshire will drastically differ compared to those of Cornwall. Independents have the specialist knowledge to help their customers find and buy the specific roofing products that they require, without having to trawl through hundreds of irrelevant options. This helps streamline the buying process of Samac’s products and ensures the correct solutions are being used across the UK.
James Robinson, Sales and Marketing Director at Samac, commented: “Unfortunately, if a customer can’t find the products they need, they quickly move to online shopping, which draws money away from the local economy. We want to help our merchant customers find the high-quality solutions that will keep their customers coming back time and time again and encourage them to support local businesses.”
Improving competition
Because of its exclusivity to the independent sector, Samac offers its customers an additional competitive edge against other general fixings suppliers. Customers will never be able to buy Samac products at a national business.
This exclusivity allows independents to avoid competing on price alone with nationals, enabling them to focus on their product range, local knowledge and customer service. Samac has always prioritised partnerships with independents to ensure these values remain central to what it does.
Robinson continued: “To create a more bespoke service for our customers, we offer a service that breaks the nails and fixings into smaller packs, which are more likely to be bought by the DIY trade. We also create custom labels for each merchant, so they can benefit from passive marketing across different building sites from the packs being seen in general use. This is a very common tactic that national merchants use, so we wanted to provide our customers with the same leg up.”
Supplying NMBS
“NMBS holds the key to our core market demographic, which is why we became a supplier over ten years ago,” explained Robinson.
“This helped us to increase the amount of exposure to independent merchants we get because they can search for a supplier like us, even if they haven’t heard of us before. NMBS provides us with a very easy new customer set-up because there are no credit checks that we need to carry out, so they can just place an order and start working with us.
“NMBS also provides a centralised invoice that covers all the merchants who have bought from us. This saves our accounts team significant time, compared to the hundreds of different statements we would have to run through. This also gives us the certainty that our invoices will be paid on time, which allows our cash flow to become predictable and certain. This can be difficult to achieve when the economy is uncertain.”
So, is exclusively supplying the independent sector worth it? The Samac experience says so, and it is a strategy that is increasingly attracting a large number of new suppliers into the market.
Dean Hayward, Head of Sales and Marketing at NMBS, commented: “Samac is a brilliant example of how becoming an NMBS supplier opens new gateways to independent merchants and enhances customer-to-merchant relationships. NMBS is in a privileged position to help suppliers and merchants work together to maintain local economies, a competitive edge and long-standing personal relationships.”
