New guy here with a couple questions

[KevinH78]

First off, I want to say this board is really nice and extremely informative but I only wish I had found this board months ago when I first started getting my business ideas together.:shy: I am trying to get my company off the ground in east Texas and one major problem I am having is finding wholesalers/suppliers for a wide variety of stone products that are somewhat close to me. Last weekend I went to the Texas Nursery and Landscaping Association show at the Dallas Convention Center which was extrememly informative but the only suppliers I could find are so far away from me the shipping costs are completely killing my profit margins. I don't know if any of you can help me but any information will be greatly appreciated. If you need to send me a private message please do so or post up anything here if you can.

Thanks again,

Kevin Honeycutt :)

[Lanelle]

Welcome aboard Kevin! All I can suggest at this point is to look for your local retail stone suppliers and inquire if they offer a trade discount. If you are looking for pavers, contacting the manufacturer may result in your being sent to a local distributor or at least some buying information. Some manufacturers allow you to buy directly while others have a distribution network.

[agla]

Your competition should be equally effected by the unavailability of material. Look into how they are dealing with it. It could be that you'll just have to charge more for those things.

[Stonehenge]

Kevin -

First off, welcome aboard!!

Your decision to start a biz in TX - was it fueled by working for someone else, or were you in another profession entirely? Or maybe same profession, different part of the country?

What kinds of stone are you looking to get your hands on?

[KevinH78]

Instead of quoting each of you, I will just explain the situation here. My competition is only one company that is family owned and operated which makes it pretty small. They are rude to customers and do not keep a good inventory which I have been told by several of their customers who will do business with me when I get going. They are not open on Saturdays, close at EXACTLY 5:30 PM during the week, will not meet customers after hours for emergencies, and they do not offer delivery. All of these things they DO NOT do are things on the top of my TO DO list with this business.

At first, I am looking to mainly deal with palletized rock so the only equipment I have to buy is a fork lift and truck/trailer rig to make deliveries. I need to have acces to basically any and all kinds of natural rock such as moss rock, flag stone, lime stone, river rock, ect. ect. ect....... because that is what everyone around the area needs but cannot find. The competition has access to all of these materials but does not keep an inventory to serve their customers which is what I am trying to do the opposite of. My method of ordering inventory is going to be asking my customers what they need and how much they need so I can order that amount and a little more in case they run short.

Anyway, I hope this explains my situation a little more. :D

[KevinH78]

Oh, I forgot to add that I have plenty different manufacturers of man made stone I have access to but it is the natural stuff that is giving me so much grief.;)

[Stonehenge]

You might want to start with someplace like the DNR, or a state geologist, or your county extension office. I'm thinking that they will know the parts of Texas where there's quarriable stone, and might even know of the quarries. That would be a starting point for sourcing local stone. For out of state stone, you can always do better if you can oder in large quantities...However, that involves a big cash outlay up front, hoping the stone will sell.

If your only competition is a single company, I'm not surprised they do what they do. They can afford to. You will likely find that as you steal market share away from them, they will begin to wise up and offer the things you offer. Have a plan in place for the time that happens - other services of goods to offer, so you can always be one step ahead.

Don't know if I helped on the sourcing question. Let us know if there's other info we can provide to help.

Jeff

[Paul]

Suppliers can be located on line or thru your local landscape asso. I just did a quickgoggle search and found this for you http://www.saladoquarry.com/mfg_proc.html

After going thru a bit of stone here and there the one problem is having the $$ to stock and an large enough site to store, I can tell you this a couple hundred tons of stone takes up large lot.

[KevinH78]

Thanks for the replies everyone! :D Paul, after looking at the link you showed me, I guess I should have worded my post a little different to say that my main interest is finding someone that deals mainly in surface stones such as river rock and moss boulders of various types. I already have a couple quarries that will sell me limestone and sandstone although it is always a good thing to have more than one source available and I will definitely check that place out.

Thanks again everyone for your replies and tips! :D

[Stonehenge]

Can you define 'Surface Stones'? I'm not familiar with that term. Do you mean decorative stone used in landscape beds?

[KevinH78]

Originally posted by Stonehenge
Can you define 'Surface Stones'? I'm not familiar with that term. Do you mean decorative stone used in landscape beds?

I guess the term " surface stones " was something I sort of came up with after looking at so many different varieties. What I mean by that is stones and rocks that are not cut or chiseled in any way but in their natural form. Think of being somewhere in a mountainous area and rocks being in a river bottom or up in the northern regions the lake bottoms are mainly rocks. Does that make any sense or no?

edit:

I guess it could be called decorative stone but haven't heard anyone call it that particularly.

[Paul]

We have field boulders, river stone, plus a heck of a lot of different colored gravels, here along with blue-stone. Each area seems to call one product by different names.

[Paul]

ok try here http://www.findstone.com/

[KevinH78]

Originally posted by Paul
ok try here http://www.findstone.com/

Great! :D Man, that is awesome. Thanks a million!