Grips Intelligence data also reveals online sales By Craig Webb Newly released data on mower sales at The Home Depot and Lowe's indicates Mother Nature isn't the only reason why spring is the big season for lawn and garden products. And related data shows that online remains a powerful purchasing option even after the weather warms. The data illustrates how mower sales at The Home Depot and Lowe's shot up starting the week of March 19 and peaked in the second half of April. T

DEALER 84 Lumber -- Stephen Manning -- SE Division Premium Window & Door Manager 84 Lumber -- Justin Reid -- OSR Bliffert Lumber -- Alyssa Richter -- Commercial Operations Manager Buck Lumber & Building Supply -- Jim McMahon -- Purchasing/Administration Manager Builders FirstSource -- David Boyce -- National Sales Representative-Multifamily Group Builders FirstSource -- Kevin Bruce -- Regional Inventory Manager/Senior Buyer Builders FirstSource -- Tristan Gillis -- OSR Builde

LBM facilities acquired (blue pins), newly opened (green), or closed (red) YTD 2026. Source: Webb Analytics Halfway through 2026, the acquisitions market and greenfield openings count for construction supply companies are remarkably similar. The big difference involves deal size. Through July 15, Webb Analytics' Deals Database has tracked 61 acquisitions involving 773 locations, mainly in the U.S. with a few in Canada. By the same point in 2025, the database had recorded 62 t

Analysis by Craig Webb Potential investors in QXO impressed by the game plan Chairman and CEO Brad Jacobs laid out would do well to note how similar Jacobs' vision is to what the CEOs of QXO's predecessor Beacon Building Products presented four and eight years ago. Powerpoint slides from analyst days in 2018 and 2022 contain much of the same road map that Jacobs put in his latest investor Q&A, in which he projects QXO growing rapidly and more than doubling EBITDA by 2030. On

Benjamin Moore halted its bill-through relationship with the Do it Best Group not long after the co-op entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Sherwin-Williams.

QXO Chairman & CEO Brad Jacobs issued July 9 an investor Q&A that projects how its operations will grow rapidly and collectively more than double EBITDA to about $4 billion by 2030 from nearly $2 billion today. QXO believes EBITDA at its legacy Beacon Building Products operation can rise to $2 billion from $800 million, while EBITDA at its Kodiak Building Partners division can reach $400 million from $210 million. As for its newly acquired TopBuild, QXO projects EBITDA will h

A record 1,204 people from 50+ countries traveled to Amsterdam June 17-19 for the biggest international meeting of companies that run home centers, hardware stores, and pro yards. Hardly any Americans attended the Global DIY-Summit, but I did, looking for stealable ideas. Here are nine takeaways that North America’s dealers can use.

Do it Best Group President & CEO Dan Starr (left) speaks with Do it Best Foundation's Curtis Smith on June 17 at the Global DIY-Summit in Amsterdam (Craig Webb photo) By Craig Webb Reviving the True Value brand led Do it Best to adjust its typical ideas about customers and take advantage of social media to reach the next generation, all while retaining Do it Best's core values, the President and CEO of Do it Best Group told an international audience June 17. “Authenticity is

By Craig Webb Attorneys for both sides of a potential class action complaint against Ace Hardware Corp. and its members have been ordered to file a joint initial status report by July 16 and attend a hearing via telephone on July 26. The May 8 order by Judge Sunil R. Harjani of the U.S. District Court in Chicago represents the only advance since the May 7 filing alleging that Ace runs a price-fixing cartel and illegally influences both how existing stores are sold and where n

May 2026 made the industry pivot undeniable — and gave LBM dealers a clearer path through the AI question than they had three months ago. By John Marshall, Co-Founder, AI Growth Partners KEY POINTS May’s three biggest AI moves—OpenAI’s $4 billion Deployment Company, Anthropic’s Claude for Small Business with QuickBooks and Microsoft 365 connectors, and PwC’s 30,000-consultant Claude alliance—all signal one shift: from model-capability competition to workflow application and m

How involved are dealers in social media today? To answer that question, Webb Analytics asked the Google Gemini artificial intelligence service to review Webb Analytics' database of construction supply companies and then search the Internet to learn which social media formats they use. From that analysis, Google Gemini identified 1,432 companies in the Webb Analytics database that sold lumber, roofing, or siding, thus suggesting they are pro dealers. Google found another 846

Construction Supply facilities acquired (blue pins), newly opened (green), and closed (red), YTD 2026. Source: Webb Analytics So far this year, we have seen 53 deals to acquire construction supply facilities, just one fewer than the 54 LBM M&A deals we had at this same point in 2025. But with 764 locations affected, the number of facilities that changed hands is only 58% of the 1,307 that got new owners by mid-June 2025. Perhaps the most interesting deal of the past few weeks

DEALER ABC Supply -- Michael Bixler -- Managing Partner ABC Supply -- Zach Florea -- Managing Partner ABC Supply -- Josh McCarty -- District Manager -- Rocky Mountain District ABC Supply -- Ryan Morgan -- District Manager -- South Central District ABC Supply -- Nicholas Makar -- Manager of Sales Transformation ABC Supply Interiors -- Bryan Ciesiulka -- District Manager -- Midwest Bliffert Lumber & Design -- Josh Brown -- President & CEO Bliffert Lumber & Design -- Jay Bro

By Craig Webb Headlines about a recent potential class action complaint brought against Ace Hardware Corp. and its members have focused on allegations that Ace runs a price-fixing cartel. They've tended to overlook a second claim: Allegations that Ace illegally influences how existing stores are sold and where new ones can be opened. The May 7 filing in a U.S. District Court in Chicago argues that Ace "abandoned its commitment to independence by illegally coordinating members

By Craig Webb Both in deeds and words, the federal government is taking action against companies that it believes are avoiding duties and tariffs by sneaking lumber into the United States. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency issued a notice May 4 concluding that Coastal Specialty Forest Products, Inc., doing business as Coastal Forest Products, avoided anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Western red cedar lumber from Canada by arrange to ship the wood through New

QXO Chairman and CEO Brad Jacobs released May 11 an investor Q&A in which he elaborated on the company's cross-selling, one-stop-shop strategy as it combines TopBuild, Kodiak Building Partners, and its already acquired Beacon Building Products. Some highlights: 1) TopBuild's roughly 22,000 job site visits/day "will give give us valuable job site intelligence in real time. We can use that information to optimize inventory placement around the network, proactively cross-sell, i

DEALERS ABC Supply -- Daisy Bream -- OSR ABC Supply -- Julian Castaneda -- Branch Manager ABC Supply -- Kevin Culwell -- Branch Manager ABC Supply -- Adam Krauskopf -- Branch Manager ABC Supply -- Ryan Morgan -- South Central District Manager ABC Supply Interiors -- Anthony Baccari -- Branch Manager Big C Lumber -- Courtney Kaptur -- General Manager -- Three Oaks, M DEALERS Builders FirstSource -- Alena Brenner -- Chief Legal Officer Builders FirstSource -- Marc Lawrence -- S

LBM facilities acquired (blue dots), were newly opened (green), or closed (red) YTD 2026. Source: Webb Analytics Three LBM operations sold in fast-growing South Carolina and nearby Georgia highlight a recent flurry in lumberyard deals, even as most attention is on QXO's purchase of insulation installer and dealer TopBuild. The first announcement was from Carter Lumber, which said May 4 it bought Gaster Lumber of Savannah and Bloomingdale, GA, and Hardeeville, SC. Later that d

“Hidden Assets” theme highlights dealers’ role in making and installing products as well as massive acquisitions by the biggest companies WASHINGTON, May 5, 2026—Small changes on top hid enormous changes below for America’s most important sellers of building materials in 2025, Webb Analytics’ latest Construction Supply 150 (CS150) reveals. The entire CS150 saw their revenues go up a modest 1.4% to roughly $424.25 billion. But if you remove the 3.2% and 3.1% gains at The Hom

Builders FirstSource plunged to a net loss of $47.4 million in the first quarter from net income of $96.3 million in 1Q25 on a 10.1% drop in net sales to $3.3 billion, the company reported April 30. Adjusted EBITDA shrank 42.1% to $213.8 million and the EBITDA margin dropped 360 basis points to 6.5%.