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News & Updates - Tuesday, September 27, 2005

BuildDirect - Profile

HQ: Vancouver, BC

Founded: 1999

Management: Co-founder President & CEO is Jeff Booth and his co-founder and EVP is Robert Banks.

Investors: Bootstrapped by founders.

Business Model: BuildDirect is an online wholesaler of building products like bamboo, slate and granite flooring, decking, granite counter tops and ceramic tiles. A this point, the company's SKU breadth is limited, but it has good selection and prices within SKU types. Unline most competitors, it will sell by the container load to commercial developers; so a 2000 sq ft. granite slab can be purchased online. Like Costco, BuildDirect sells at a low price for big volume sales. Customers might be builders, developers, distributors, contractors, re-manufacturers, architects, sub-contractors, retailers and homeowners. Like Dell, they take orders online, ask for the money up front, manufacture the product and deliver it later. A pallet load of granite, for example, might take a couple of weeks to arrive at a customer, a container eight to 12 weeks.

Competitors: iFloor plus brick and morter companies like Lowes.com and HomeDepot.com.

Dirt: iFloor is doing very well, but BuildDirect's prices are better, particularly for container loads. With the post-hurricanes rebuilding in the US South and the boom in cheap building products coming out of China, BuildDirect has huge opportunities both in supply and demand.