TFC#11: The Advantages of Sharing a Catalog

According to Woodworking Network, there are 9,000 cabinet shops in the US producing under $15 million in revenue which makes up 60% of the industry.

Seven large corporations control the remaining 40%.

Large corporations have it nice because they have lots of resources available to help them develop their catalog and keep it up to date.

The 9,000 remaining shops each have to prioritize precious time and resources to individually develop and maintain their catalog.

I have been thinking of this quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.

I don’t know exactly what the end solution would look like, but I can imagine a licensing model that shops could subscribe to for a much cheaper cost than building everything out themselves.

This type of solution wouldn’t be for everyone. However, I know a lot of people who would jump at the opportunity to have access to something like this.

A shared catalog could be great for you if this applies:

• you want to sell to dealers but don’t have the content or systems to do it

• you want to sell to homeowners but don’t have a website or any content to showcase

• you’re trying to set up Cabinet Vision and it feels overwhelming to build your library of objects.

• you want to use pricing/ordering software but don’t have a catalog

• you want a better pricing structure but don’t have the time to stay up to date with vendor pricing

• you don’t want to waste your team’s time

For those of you thinking right now that this will make you lose your competitive advantage. I would argue that the only ones benefiting from shops not sharing information are larger corporations.

The Benefits of a Shared Catalog

Let’s imagine for a moment what a shared catalog might look like for a group of shops.

For this example, I’m going to assume a shared catalog would give you all of these things:

• optimized Cabinet Vision library

• cabinet catalog names and images

• door catalog names and images

• molding catalog names and images

• database of base-level pricing

• access to a library of content (brochures, catalogs, images)

• ready-to-go website with updated catalog content

Optimized manufacturing software

I help a handful of shops with their Cabinet Vision software for $125/hour. It feels wasteful to me to not be able to better share the work at one shop with another shop.

It leaves individual shops with the choice of spending thousands of dollars on specialized consulting or leaving it as is and getting by with not maximizing Cabinet Vision.

I get lots of similar questions in Cabinet Vision but the implementation of the solution is always a bit different according to how their construction is set up and how they are using Cabinet Vision.

A shared catalog would give each shop access to the same library of optimized construction methods and UCSs.

Most shops will kick back and say something like, “well, that sounds nice, but I build custom cabinets, that would never work.”

I agree. It won’t work for everyone. However, at the end of the day, we are all building boxes. Some people just build their boxes a little bit differently or build more specialized boxes.

Building custom cabinets shouldn’t prevent you from optimizing the basic cabinets that you do build. The majority of cabinets in a typical job will be fairly standard cabinets.

A shared catalog wouldn’t prevent you from branching out and doing custom work, but it would make your software work a lot better overall.

Access to digital content

I worked at Cabentry for 5 years and in that time, I helped a lot of shops set up their catalogs in our pricing and ordering software.

Most of the shops I talked to, did not have a structured catalog. They just built what the customer wanted. This made their implementation very difficult because we had to work together to find all the needed options and images.

Most people settle for using linear foot or a simplified pricing model because they don’t have the resources to develop a well-made catalog.

Imagine being able to have access to a catalog that you can simply put your logo on and hand out to your customers and dealers.

This could include ready-to-go tri-folds, paper catalogs, brochures, and style books.

Do you have a brochure with the cabinets you offer?

Doors?

Moldings?

Accessories?

It sounds like a lot of work doesn’t it?

Most people would agree that it would be nice to have but never explore it because it seems too far off and impossible.

Even if you outsource your doors and molding, you could still utilize the shared catalog of door and molding names. You don’t have to use the vague names your door and molding shop uses.

The key to this is not thinking of it as a limited stock cabinet line, but rather, access to a database of objects and assets that you have permission to pick and choose how you utilize.

Updated pricing

Are you still using an old pricing book from 2010?

It is a lot of work to keep everything updated with Rev a Shelf, Blum, and other vendors making 3-4 price changes per year.

Each shop has two options. They can allocate the time and resources to update their pricing options or they can get by as it is… until they have more time.

Or, my personal favorite, they can add a percentage on top of their current pricing that will hopefully cover the rising costs.

Imagine how off you can get after doing this several times. You may not be remotely close to the right prices and you wouldn’t even know it.

I’d say we would all be very surprised at the number of shops that are winging it with their pricing. Especially smaller shops.

A shared library would help with this because it would give you access to a library of base pricing.

Each shop will still have its own profit margins and efficiencies that will play into the overall pricing, but being able to see base-level pricing would be a great benefit.

Website templates

This doesn’t mean you have to have a cookie-cutter website. It does mean you could have a very nice-looking website that could be kept up to date with ease.

A shared catalog would give you access to a full library of media you could use for your website to help look professional and organized.

How many of you have thought about updating your website but haven’t prioritized making new sample doors and getting pictures of them?

It’s a lot of work.

Easier integrations

Integrations are becoming more and more important in todays world. Sharing a catalog makes the implementation of these integrations a lot easier.

Instead of every shop spending 50k on developing its own 2020 Design catalog, this group of shops could share a catalog and not worry about the costs and time of maintaining it.

Other integrations could include Quickbooks products, pricing software, CV, and more.

Conclusion

The idea of a shared catalog for the cabinet-making industry has the potential to transform the way small businesses operate in the market.

A shared catalog would not prevent individual shops from branching out and doing custom work but will make their systems work better overall, helping them compete with larger corporations in the market.

So what are your thoughts?

Is sharing a catalog a valid idea for helping a cabinet shop operate more efficiently?

Should each shop keep its innovations and ideas to itself to maintain its competitive advantage?

Shoot me an email and let’s talk more on this.

Thanks for reading.

Myron