By Craig Webb Amendments to a class action complaint accusing Ace Hardware Corp. and related parties of fixing prices and controlling access has left the defendants unmoved, as shown Oct. 30 by their renewed motion to dismiss the case. Attorneys for the defendants also moved Oct. 30 to compel arbitration involving four of five plaintiffs whose purchases form the basis of the complaint. U.S. District Judge Sunil Harjani should issue a stay involving the fifth plaintiffs, the m

Craig Webb photo By Craig Webb The signs are in two languages, but any American could understand the messages being delivered to Canada's construction supply industry at this year's Hardlines conference: These aren't easy times, and it will take extraordinary efforts to achieve anything better than low-digit gains. A new North American Hardware and Paint Association (NHPA) panel study of 80 companies with 950 stores in the U.S. and Canada found 50.8% predict moderate growth i

Artificial intelligence and automated estimating tools are radically compressing takeoff turnaround times from days to minutes. But three dealer executives and other experts warned Oct. 7 that automation alone cannot generate an accurate, shippable bill of materials without experienced estimators verifying the work. During a webinar hosted by Webb Analytics and sponsored by building-platform provider Higharc, the panelists agreed that, while speed is essential to winning bids

Andersen Windows CEO Chris Galvin, second from right, gestures Oct. 13 during an executive panel at CBUSA's Summit in Colorado Springs, CO. Joining him were (far left) Devin Stockfish of Weyerheauser and (second from left) Aaron Erter of James Hardie. CBUSA's Bill Smithers (far right) led the discussion. (Craig Webb photo) By Craig Webb The heads of three major product manufacturers said Oct. 13 they recognize times are tough, but they stressed even more how they are working

Mark Boud of Real Estate Economics speaks at the CBUSA Summit on Oct. 12 Separate presentations Oct. 12-13 by a pair of housing economists covered different ground but reached the same conclusion: Building and remodeling prospects are weak at best. "It's not going to be very exciting over the next couple of years," Mark Boud, founder of Real Estate Economics, told members of CBUSA at its annual meeting Oct. 12. You should be thinking of a scenario in which the volume of sales

Slide shown Oct. 12 during CBUSA's Summit By Craig Webb The 989 custom builders that buy materials through CBUSA are starting homes at a collective 16,000 annual rate and generating more than $14 billion in combined revenue—totals that rank them fourth among the nation’s largest home builders, CBUSA said Oct. 12. President Brian Pavlick also said at the buying group’s summit that the 43 markets where CBUSA now operates has grown by three since Jan. 1 and will grow by three mo

Courtesy MANS Lumber & Home From simple math calculations to sophisticated AI reports, the ProDealer Industry Summit gave LBM executives an armful of tools and tips they could use to generate higher profit margins at a time when sales prospects are tepid at best. Kristin Andrews, Director of Business Process Optimization at Michigan's MANS Lumber & Home, sounded this theme when she offered up an interactive "Price the Fiction" tool to help dealers quantify how many dollars an

DEALER ABC Supply -- Larry Sullivan -- CIO Builders FirstSource -- Jason Owens -- Account Manager Builders FirstSource -- Spencer Boggs -- OSR East Islip Lumber -- Marc Gattuso -- Sales Manager Hancock Lumber -- James Gigliotti -- Purchasing Manager Heister House Millworks -- Mike Shaner -- OSR HPM Building Supply -- Andrew Tyner -- Regional Manager -- Oahu, HI Interior Logic Group -- Jeff Trapp -- Co-COO Nation's Best Holdings -- Tyler Yates -- VP of Operational Excellence D

LBM facilities acquired (blue pins), newly opened (green) or closed (red) YTD 2026. Source: Webb Analytics How quiet is LBM's M&A market? There hasn't been a noteworthy acquisition announced since Sept. 1, when Builders FirstSource said it purchased the 11-unit, Florida-based Gleckler & Sons Building Supplies. That addition means we now have seen 826 locations change hands so far this, according to Webb Analytics' database. That's far behind the 1,825 locations acquired in al

By John S. Koda, Esq. John S. Koda, Brick Business Law Now more than ever, building and construction industry professionals must focus on how economic and geopolitical factors raise project-related costs and reduce margins. No matter whether you are a dealer, builder, sub, or vendor, the wise move is to take preemptive, precautionary legal action to mitigate those effects. The dilemma faced by a client of mine might sound familiar. In the time required for him to develop his

Do it Best's planned EasyCare paint line and how it compares with other brands. Source: Do it Best image with Webb Analytics additions By Craig Webb Do it Best Group plans to launch in Spring 2028 an expanded and upgraded line of EasyCare paints that will cover more price categories and give the co-op's members alternatives to products like Benjamin Moore, Behr, and Glidden. The move embraces True Value's legacy product in favor of Do it Best's Best Look brand, which will be

By John Marshall Most businesses do not have an AI problem; They have a work-design problem. After buying licenses and experimenting with various AI programs, someone has written a better email, summarized a meeting, analyzed a spreadsheet or built a report faster. That’s useful, but it’s not transformative. To get real business results, you need to redesign the workflow. By workflow, I mean the path a piece of work follows from start to finish—who touches it, what informatio

DEALER 84 Lumber -- Brooke Appler -- EWP Hub Manager 84 Lumber -- Dustin Hauenstein -- CFO 84 Lumber -- Tedra Schadt -- Co Manager -- Dayton, OH ABC Supply -- Ian Blackmar -- Branch Manager -- Avon, MA ABC Supply -- Mike Jost -- CEO -- Starting 1/1/27 ABC Supply -- Brett Simon -- Inside Sales Representative Builders FirstSource -- Paul Jeffries -- Area Line of Business Manager Builders FirstSource -- TJ Kirkpatrick -- Area Manager Builders FirstSource -- Vonn Lindersmith -- M

The World Millwork Alliance (WMA) alerted its members this week to a pair of unrelated regulations in various states that ultimately could have wide impact. The first involves a disturbing change to Florida's building code that affects doors, while the other concerns a new push against initiatives in several states to make producers pay for the cleanup of single-use materials. Florida Doors Historically, Florida's residential building code said that side-hinged exterior doors

LBM facilities acquired (blue dots), newly opened (green) or closed (red) YTD 2026. Source: Webb Analytics By Craig Webb The LBM M&A market heads toward the final three months of 2026 following a 3rd Quarter that featured close to the usual number of transactions but for far fewer facilities. The first three months of 2026 saw 27 deals for 262 facilities, according to Webb Analytics' database. The action peaked in the 2nd Quarter, in which 33 transactions captured 511 facilit

(Editor's Note: This story was updated Sept. 23 with a statement from Fastmarkets) By Craig Webb Do it Best's VP for Lumber & Building Materials announced Sept 15 that his co-op will ask all its mill partners to price lumber and panel contracts in 2027 using Forest Economic Advisors' PricePulse rather than with Random Lengths, the service published by RISI's Fastmarkets. Russ Kathrein justified his broadside against the traditional pricing guide as a move to modern times, but

By Craig Webb Fresh, albeit two-year-old federal data illustrates the differences among construction supply dealer sectors in 2024, with hardware and paint stores inching higher from 2023 while home centers, building material dealers, and garden stores all slipped a bit. The numbers above are part of the Census Bureau's Annual Integrated Economic Survey, a relatively new report that combines over a half dozen annual business surveys into a single document. The 2024 version, r

By John Marshall A year ago, Artificial Intelligence at our company was whatever individual people decided to do on their own. Some people at our 120-employee, $30 million manufacturing operation had ChatGPT accounts. A few had Claude. What training existed was whatever I did in passing: Showing somebody a technique between meetings, working through a problem with whoever asked. Nothing was written down, and I could not have told you who was using what or for which tasks. We

By Craig Webb A class action complaint alleging price- and market-fixing by Ace Hardware Corp., its units, and Epicor was expanded Sept. 2 to include seven of the nation's biggest hardware chains. The Amended Complaint now includes as defendants: W.E. Aubuchon Co., parent of Aubuchon Hardware and stores with other names; Bellmore Home Center, owner of Costello's Ace Hardware and Rommel's Ace Home Center; Bolster Hardware, owner of Potter's Ace Hardware and other stores; The H

By Craig Webb The impact varies, but lumberyards, exterior specialists, and two-step distributors across the country are dealing with a pair of moves that have changed who handles and gets to sell some of the construction world's most popular products. On Aug. 3, James Hardie Building Products designated Boise Cascade's Building Materials Distribution (BMD) division as the sole nationwide distributor of the Hardie portfolio. BMD already was selling Hardie siding and trim, and