Plumbing Africa Plumblink's first hundred stores | Page 9

“That is something we recognised and was
one part of the reason that we accelerated
the launch and stocking of our own brand
– we also knew that as we grew, we
would be able to find our own economies
of scale. The whole idea is to give some
product variety to the various customer
sectors while retaining the old traditional
brands we have always stocked.”
“At the beginning, we probably didn’t
really believe we’d grow to over one
hundred stores,” says McFarlane. One of
the challenges of growth is that suppliers
leverage their increased sales volume
on the back of Plumblink to achieve
economies of scale for themselves – and
then discount their offering to Plumblink’s
competitors at a lower price (even though
those economies of scale are primarily
achieved by piggybacking on their trade
with Plumblink).
Plumblink hosts an awards evening for suppliers each year.
Streamlining the organisation
“The company has a total around of
10 000 listed SKUs, the balance of
which are primarily aimed at the contract
business and are ordered as and when a
tender is awarded and project orders from
our clients are secured.
www.plumblink.co.za
Plumblink has in excess of 8 500 ‘active’
product lines available, though the average
store typically carries between 800 and
1 500 of them, explains commercial
director Gary Chandler. Based on the
80/20 principle, the 1 500 products
contribute to 80% of the turnover – and the
remaining 6 000 lines are available when
ordered, but are not necessarily stocked
in all the stores. “It isn’t worth stocking
in all stores for the two or three we might
sell in a month in total, these products are
typically stocked in the Distribution centres
only – but accessible and visible on our
system to each and every branch and
staff member, and therefore also to our
customer.” he says.
Gary Chandler, commercial director.
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