PANIPACIFIC COUNIRY

"Wood Works" Helps Dealers

Dealers can increase sales with the "Wood Works" and other messages selling the environmental superiority of wood, a recent Western Wood Products Association survey discovered.

Figures show 22Vo of retail customers and 28Vo of wholesale customers are more comfortable buying environmentally certified lumber. Some 204o of these customers answered "perhaps" or "yes" when asked if they'd be willing to pay more for such products.

Lumber having a Scientific Certification Systems/TVestern Wood Products Association stamp along with an Environmental Report Card will have a tremendous advantage in the marketplace, according to survey results. Both will enable dealers to satisfy environmentally-minded customers.

Deadbeats On The Pacific

Bill paying performance lags behind last year with the Pacific region the slowest in the nation.

"California's poor perfomrance has been the heavy anchor on the region for some time," Dun & Bradstreet reporB.

Small and medium-size businesses led the way in improving bill paying nationwide at the end of 1993, but it was not enough. The bill-paying rate is behind last year's level. "Despite the recent glowing reports of economic improvement" many business are still under tremendous financial strain," the credit-rating company concludes.

Retailer Ships To Russia

Three overseas containers of lunber and building materials have been sent to Russia from Ganahl Lumber Co.'s Garden Grove, Ca., location.

The materials will be used to build three model homes outside Moscow. Every product needed !o build a home, framing, siding, roofing, even hammers and other tools, was included in the shipment, according to Tom Barclay, Garden Grove general manager. Ten pallets of hardware alone were packed in what Barclay called a "yard event" because it called on the efforts and expertise of so many of his staff.

The Ganahl crew was responsible for researching product specs, assembling the required tools and materials and packing the shipment during the last week of February.