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Exotic Wood Supplier

Being an exotic wood supplier isn't easy. Here are some of the reasons why.

Author: Bell Forest Products

As an exotic wood supplier, Bell Forest Products faces many challenges from day to day. We are responsible for balancing inventory, dealing with foreign suppliers, and grading foreign shipments. In our simplest definition, Bell Forest Products is a retail and wholesale supplier of Birdseye maple, Curly maple, and northern hardwoods. In recent years, we have also become a supplier of exotic woods. This change has brought with it several benefits, but also several challenges.

One of the biggest challenges is balancing our domestic and exotic inventory. Every woodworker that orders lumber on the Internet dreams of a 'one stop shop'. Therefore, our ideal situation would be to inventory as many species as we can get our saws on. But with a limited amount of warehouse space, important decisions need to be made. Being a domestic hardwood sawmill, you can imagine that we have quite a bit of domestic hardwood lumber in inventory. So if we decide to add 30 new species of exotics, can we make warehouse space? Do we stop carrying some of the slower selling domestic species? How do we know if a new species of exotic wood is going to sell? These are all questions that needed answers before Bell Forest Products could become an exotic wood supplier.

Another roadblock to becoming an exotic wood supplier is foreign relations. How many businesses are willing to drop $20k to $50k as a down payment on their first container of exotic woods from Africa? There is a huge risk in wiring that kind of cash overseas. But relationships need to be built and there is risk on both sides. How many wood suppliers are willing to 'float' 10,000 board feet of lumber without a down payment? And when a deal is finally made, how can the buyer be sure about what they are getting?

There are no standard grading rules for exotic woods. Domestic hardwoods are graded according to NHLA (National Hardwood Lumber Association) grading rules. Because there is no standard for exotic woods, overseas vendors sell an extremely wide variety of 'grades' and sizes. We had to take all of this (and more) into consideration before becoming an exotic wood supplier. Although it isn't easy, what makes it all worthwhile is walking through the warehouse and looking at all the racks filled with unique and amazing woods from all over the globe.