What Builders' Merchants Need to Know About Going Digital

Builders' merchants are at an inflection point.

Buyers who once relied entirely on branch visits and phone calls are now starting their procurement journeys online, checking stock levels, comparing specifications, and making purchasing decisions before they ever walk through the door.

At the same time, product data demands are intensifying across the supply chain, and the merchants who can't keep up are quietly losing ground to those who can.

The challenge for many builders' merchants isn't a lack of ambition. It's that digital transformation can feel impossibly large.

In the recent Brave Talk podcast, Lance Owide, VP of B2B at Commerce, joined Brave Bison's VP of Commerce Al Ward and Pimberly's Managing Director, Craig McCalley, to break down what it actually takes to get a builders' merchant online in a way that is structured, realistic, and built to deliver ROI fast.

Here are the key takeaways.

The biggest barrier to going digital is how merchants think about it

Map your processes before you pick a platform.

Lance Owide: "People generally approach a technology shift thinking about technology. They start by thinking about their platform. Instead, they should be thinking about their business processes. What are the business processes we internally operate through? How do we get inventory information? How do our customers like to shop? Starting with that is really important because it helps to map out the transformation."

Craig McCalley: "One of the reasons why we offer what we call an “As Is Session” is so we can explore, 'How are you working at the moment? Not what's your tech stack but, “how are you working from onboarding this product information and where is it going?' We like to look at the process and see how we can create efficiency that will then deliver growth."

Key takeaway 

Technology should answer a process question, not lead it. Merchants who start by understanding how their business actually operates, and how their buyers actually shop, make smarter technology decisions and avoid costly course corrections down the line.

Digital transformation doesn't have to happen all at once.

Owide: "You see a competitor out there who just looks like they are crushing it. They have the most incredible online experience. This leaves you thinking, 'How on earth do I get there?' And the truth is, you don't need to get there all at once."

Key takeaway 

A best-in-class digital experience is built in stages, not launched in one go. Merchants who accept that and commit to a first meaningful step are already ahead of those waiting until conditions feel perfect.

The right framework removes the need to start from scratch

Merchants don't have to figure out what works — that groundwork is already done.

Al Ward: "Branch of the Future is a practical digital commerce framework built specifically for builders' merchants. The aim isn't to rip out what's already working or create unnecessary complexity. It's about helping merchants connect modern commerce capabilities to their existing operations in a way that's structured, realistic, and lowers risk."

Owide: "With Branch of the Future, we've brought together best-in-breed technologies and best-of-breed solutions. Your business objective will look different to the business down the road, but we'll have seen it and know how it's been solved."

McCalley: "It's around acceleration really. Start here, not here, because we've learned all of this over the years. What is going to give the fastest ROI and prove to the business and the board that this is money well spent? Once we know that, we can build on it."

Key takeaway

Most digital transformations stall because merchants are solving problems from scratch that others have already figured out. Branch of the Future packages that collective experience into a starting point, so merchants can move faster, with less risk, from day one.

A phased, practical approach is what actually gets merchants moving

Understanding your customer journey is the only real starting point.

Owide: "When you understand your customer journey, that will dictate how it starts. I could put sheets and sheets of information together about best practices, but there is no blueprint. The blueprint is based on you, your customer cohort, and how they like to shop.

"For many businesses, it might be that your customers are always going to be in store. What do they need? They just need product information. So actually, all you need to do is get a site live with your product information. Because if you're the one providing that information, then they're definitely coming back to you."

Key takeaway 

There is no single right answer for where a builders' merchant should start digitally. The right answer comes from understanding what your specific buyers need, where they get stuck, and where you can provide the most immediate value.

Getting live fast and iterating beats waiting to get everything perfect.

Owide: "For those businesses that say, 'I'm going to go away and build for a year and come back and launch a site.' By then, your customer might have changed what they're demanding. The market has moved on and their needs changed. So getting live fast, showing customer value, and then iterating quickly is the best approach to take."

Key takeaway 

Launching something smaller and improving it quickly builds more momentum than a long, complex build that tries to solve everything upfront. Early wins also make it easier to secure internal buy-in for what comes next.

Digital commerce strengthens branch teams rather than replacing them.

Owide: "I think the biggest learning over the past year, and hopefully this myth is being dispelled, is that ecommerce somehow threatens branch teams. That is just not the case at all. If anything, it helps them grow and gives them an incredible lever that they can use to grow.

"What this is doing is taking that burden off branches who are getting phone calls that ask very mundane questions. 'What products do you have? What inventory do you have? Can I put it on hold?' Do that all online. You don't need a person picking up the phone to do that. And that's a huge unlock for branches."

McCalley: "The really sophisticated guys are going, 'We're doing this online now, which is great. Now we're almost reverse engineering it into the branch.' When somebody is buying a product online, it will show cross-sell and upsell products. So it's taking some of the ecommerce principles to enable the branches to grow revenue."

Key takeaway 

Digital commerce handles the repetitive, informational workload that currently ties up branch staff. That frees your teams to focus on the higher-value conversations and relationships that a website never will replace.

The final word

Builders' merchants don't need a perfect digital strategy before they take the first step. They need a clear understanding of their customers, a realistic sense of where to start, and the right partners to help them move faster than they could alone.

"With Branch of the Future, we've brought together best-in-breed technologies and best-of-breed solutions. We know and have seen all of these business problems before, and we've solved them. So you're not starting from square one. You're starting from square five." — Lance Owide, VP of B2B, Commerce

For builders' merchants ready to take that first step, the full Brave Talk session is worth your time. Lance, Craig, and Al go deeper on the framework, the common pitfalls, and what good actually looks like at each stage of the journey.

Watch the full session here.