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Are you sure they aren’t setting up selling stations, or dealers, much like cabinet companies do? If you have volume it’s not difficult to ship some distances cost effective. 5 jobs on one truck and all of a sudden it cost’s no more than doing one job locally. With E Templates you can have measure/install crews spread out and just drop off the finished job. Cheaper ( well before the latest gas prices) to drive a truck than set up another shop. One automated shop can produce a heck of alot of counters, and using a facility 24/7 lowers your overhead.
If I was a local fabricator, and saw I was losing jobs to out of state shops, I think I would do whatever was needed to make sure they didn’t get those jobs. Once they get a foothold in the area, it is very difficult to get them out. If your working an 8 hour shift, and covering your fixed overhead, then adding even a half shift is like having free overhead.
Your have 168 hours in a week. If your using your shop only 40 of those hours, and spreading your fixed overhead over those 40 hours, look at the potential profit by taking on additional work, at a lower selling point. Every hour you work past the 40 hours the fixed portion of your overhead goes right to the bottom line.
Also if you have crews in outlying areas, you could drop a trailer of jobs and pick up an empty trailer. Lots of ways to make doing jobs further away profitable.
As a local guy last thing I would want is someone getting a toe hold in my main area. There is no reason an out of area shop should be able to get any local company to promote them.
KC,
We don’t advertise in Ky, but we advertise heavily on the Internet. We get calls from every corner of the US. Believe it or not, we’ve fabricated jobs that were installed as far away as New York and Michigan. But we don’t do the installs. We get all kinds of customers. People call who are installers, cabinet guys, remodelers, and just DIY homeowners.
Most times the distance ends the conversation. But occasionally, we get “hey, I’m going to be going through Atlanta, I’ll stop in.”
But, all in all, I’d say we’ve only had a handful of jobs like this.
And Andy, I apologize. I guess at some point I created two separate accounts and I have posts on this thread from both accounts. Sometimes I have trouble logging in. I will try and delete the second account.
Posted By Miles Crowe on 25 Feb 2012 04:06 PM
And Andy, I apologize. I guess at some point I created two separate accounts and I have posts on this thread from both accounts. Sometimes I have trouble logging in. I will try and delete the second account.
Hey Miles,
I found the second account and took care of it. Looks like you have access to the first so all is good.
Thanks for posting,
Andy
you guys would puke to know how close most of my jobs are. Ok I’ll tell yas, within 15 miles or less. I have 4 right now within 4 miles.
When a competitor comes to town somehow my wife sees them in the parking lot where she works at our home center. I ask the biz name and usually it is a company from 220 miles away. With gas at 4.85 pr gal. and more for diesel l I dont know how they do it. Usually an HD job also.Dave, wouldn’t it be closer for them to order from China?
Hey, Norm buys granite, about $20 a foot less than I do. 50 ft kitchen/-$1000, lots of room for freight if you did your own install.
China…Cha Ching! (cash register sound). Why do ya’all think a Texas boy is up in here?
Hint: its not for the food (chicken feet and entrails).
Few years back we did the same thing out of Nashville & most of it was for HD jobs. We had a 25′ box truck that we could drive to Atlanta and pick up 15-20 jobs & then install and go back the next week.
The problem was the cost. Pay 2 guys to travel to Atlanta, load the truck, then drive back to Nashville, the fab shop was unorginized, job pieces were all over the place. We would have to move other jobs to get to our jobs plus the fabrication was pure crap. I estimated it was costing us $1100/trip once you figured in the cost of the fuel, labor, ware on truck, ins payments & payments on the truck.
We used Stone Systems shops. We tried 3 different shops from Stone Systems & it didn’t matter half the jobs were fabricated incorrectly. They arent there for the quality they just fab as fast as they can and shove the product out the door.
I sill live in the Nashville area and I still hear through the grape vine that jobs are still coming out of Atlanta and being installed here. So I believe it when I hear about jobs going from Atlanta to western KY.Posted By David Gerard on 19 Mar 2012 10:38 PM
you guys would puke to know how close most of my jobs are. Ok I’ll tell yas, within 15 miles or less. I have 4 right now within 4 miles.
.Well yeah David… of course your jobs are close, ocean on one side and vast wilderness on the other… duh
The problem is that with this economy home owners will still try to remodel a kitchen with $7000.00 while 6 years ago they would have spent $20,000.00. In rural areas a lot shops have went out of business and we see jobs coming to us because there is no one else around. I guess with the low work volume even if you do a job just to break even you have at least payed your employees. To be honest the Granite shops started all this low ball pricing and I am still not sure how they survive. Seems like they make just enough to keep the doors open. As my dad always says why work and make no money when we can sit at the shop and drink coffee and make no money
Yeah Kelsey, I know,
In addition to the huge distances in AK David also has bears to contend with. Not those little black bear suckers like we do, but those big, mean want to eat you for dinner bears!
Hey David, do you ever do installs via puddle jumper (sea plane) or dog sled?
Just wondering what it’s like fabbing up there in the great white North.
You asked! I have used bicycle and Harley (templating) , snow machine, helicopter, fixed wing, John Deere gator, and boat. Also hoofed a couple tops to neighbor’s jobs where it was easier to short cut it through the ruff than load a truck and drive the long way around. Yes we had brown bears on site over in LK Clark. My brother met a sow and cubs during his early morning …pee outside.
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