THE AR'ZONA SCENE

By FRANK DAVIS SecretaryManager

A T A recent Phoenix area meeting. held l-I by associate members consisting of wholesalers and manufacturers, a round table discussion was held on the problems of the building material industry.

One of the most important points brought out was lack of product knowledge. It rvas the feeling of the group that the average retail lumber dealer today is failing in this category, and therefore was doing a poor job of merchandising and selling o{ his protlucts.

l3efore attacking this problem, a point u.as brought out in the dist:ussion in the fact that the average dealer today is also currying many hundreds oI products that \rero not carried in lumlrer yards years ago. This creates a problt'm {or the average small dcaler since. u,.ually, one or two sales pelsonnel are responsible for all sales in the vard and it is impossible for them to have product knowledge of everything that he sells. This problem is not as severe with the larger yards, as they have more sales personnel and can make sales personnel responsible for certain departments.

The wholesaler and manufacturer are doing a good job today in providing product information of their products, however. the lumber dealer is not taking full advantage o{ this knowledge in the following areas:

(1) Wholesalers are providing product knowledge to the owner but in many cases this information is not passed on to the employee who is actualll' selling the product.

(2) Thc manu{acturer today is providing thousands oI dollars worth of product literature to the dealer but the average dealer is putting the litcrature on the shelf and neither the salesman nor customer have a chance to see or read it.

(3) The wholesaler is eager to hold