BUILD IT: Quality Materials Ensure That No Place Is Like Home

Supplying quality building materials and supremely serving communities has been Build it’s purpose for more than 35 years. Born of humble beginnings, the Group has enjoyed an explosion of growth in this time to now preside over 404 stores across Southern Africa. Now representing a vital division of the SPAR Group SA, Build it operates on a voluntary trading model of over 10 000 employees across a chain of individually owned stores throughout South Africa, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique.

“Under this model, each of our members’ stores is their own legal entity and business,” explains Chris Quayle, National Marketing Manager, “and we as an organisation look after the brand and arrange the channel to market.” Retail members sign up with Build it to furnish an exhaustive suite of building materials, from cement, structural timber and roofing material to concrete and anything else used in house-building, all the way through to finishings, plumbing, electrical goods and decorative products.

“For us at Build it, it’s become about more than just making home building simple,” Quayle states, outlining the ‘mission possible’ of this formidable group of retailers. “Our sales for the period until September were in the region of R17.5 billion, which in itself would make us the number one retailer of building materials in the country.”

DREAMS INTO PLANS

“We set out to turn ‘no’ into ‘yes’ and ‘can’t’ into ‘can’, and our customers’ dreams into plans,” Quayle underlines. “That is why we have adopted a spirit of positivity, a can-do attitude, a powerful essence and a culture that we live by. So, when customers ask if we can provide the best service, a great range and excellent advice, our answer is always and without doubt: yes we can.”

“For Build it, it is about giving all of our customers hope, always making a plan for them and making things possible, but most of all, it’s about providing them with positive direction and taking the stress out of the building process so they can enjoy it for the wonderful experience that it is.”

As an essential retailer, Quayle goes on to delineate, Build it’s performance during the very worst of the pandemic far exceeded its predictions. “After the full lockdown we were fortunate to be among the first industries allowed to reopen,” he recalls. “We were expecting a slow ramp-up, budgeting for maybe 35% of our usual budget, then 50%, and so on – we were very wrong. We were hitting between 120%-150% of our budget every month thereafter throughout 2020, and into 2021.

“This was not true only for us; there was a massive boom in the building materials sector, with people spending so much more time in their houses and identifying things which needed to be done, coinciding with an increase in disposable income with so much else restricted. For us, though, it translated to record sales month-on-month nothing up big, big numbers, and while the bubble burst slightly after the end of 2021 we have managed to maintain levels comparable to those that we had prior to the advent of Covid.

“At the end of our 2022 financial year we showed a retail growth of around 3.5%, which we see as an admirable performance in the context of a market that was generally in decline by something like 8%-10%, effectively meaning that we had succeeded in holding onto the market share we gained through the pandemic period.” For Build it, the biggest concern is each of its individual retailers, not being propped up by a large cashflow making the profitability of each store of primordial importance.

CHANGING TACK

“If there is something of a slide backwards into negative growth for some,” qualifies Quayle, “although this does present a concern, when we wind back the clock to 2019 and look at a standard inflationary growth curve we would still be ahead of that in every store. Human nature is to adapt to the current challenge and many of the stores have done this, increasing their stockholdings to cater to the bigger volumes that were requisite; now, they are having to readjust and change tack on their approach to market in line with the slightly reduced demand.

“It is still highly feasible for all of these stores to remain in positive territory with regards profitability, and this is now our main focus while gaining as much market share as we can.”

Plans are in place for another 12 to 15 stores to be opened this year across the country, as Build it looks to expand its footprint while retaining full focus on its core business. “This will likely be a tough year, with people reluctant to spend,” Quayle admits, “but we will batten down the hatches and make it through. We need to ensure that we are operating lean and mean: cutting overheads, ensuring that we are keeping expenses to a minimum and while a slide in top-line sales and turnover might be inevitable, there is no reason for it to drag profitability down with it.

“It gives us a great opportunity to make sure that we are running a more efficient business overall, and that our stores are increasing their own efficiencies in turn. Riding the wave is the name of the game; both the building materials and construction sectors are extremely cyclical by nature, which entails veritable peaks and troughs. It is all about how one balances them out, toughing out the low periods and capitalising on the highs while constantly investing back into the business.”

SUPREME QUALITY

Build it’s core values of family, entrepreneurship and passion bleed through everything it does, and are evinced perhaps most explicitly in its giving back to the communities that have supported it ever since its inception. “We do this through initiatives such as our ongoing sponsorship of Under 13 soccer development in Southern Africa,” Quayle reveals. “The youth are our future and by nurturing a healthy lifestyle through sport, we are building a better future for us all. Our contributions to community projects such as school and home renovations are also a massive priority for the group.”

On a more localised, microcosmic scale it is an ethos which also ensures that Build it provides only the best, at all times, to its valued clients. “In developing markets like South Africa,” says Quayle, “where many of the customers that we serve have limited resources and funds, we come under major threat from fly-by-night retailers selling substandard materials. This makes quality a big pillar for us. We want to make sure that if our customers materials from a Build it store, they can rest assured that these have passed quality standards and are not going to fail at the first test.

“Customers are cash-strapped, and the tragedy is that they are having to do the job twice, or three times; we are steadfast in adhering to and not dropping strict standards and encourage our stores at every turn to stick to a quality offering. Price and quality go hand in hand; as soon as the pressure is applied to lower the price, so the quality is eroded.

“If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to enforce far stricter regulations in the building sector, especially in the informal market, where people are building houses under the impression that they are using proper materials, erroneously. It is a big factor for us to encourage our stores to stick to quality, especially when it comes to bigger products like cement, lintel and reinforcing steel – the things put into the infrastructure of the house which simply cannot be allowed to fail, but which, if of inferior quality, very much can.

“We are intent on supplying quality products in a market which is very price-sensitive, where quality is disappearing at every turn,” Quayle reiterates. “in a lot of instances, our competitors may seem a more cost-effective option, but when quality drops the only losers are the end users. What we want to maintain in our Group is top-quality materials at an affordable price, while playing an integral role in the communities that we serve.”