Farm Forestry New Zealand

How will we sell our specialty timbers?

Gabrielle Walton, New Zealand Tree Grower November 2016.

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After six weeks of interviews and investigating the speciality timber market place, the Devcich report said that demand for speciality timbers is currently high and business is good for those selling it. In fact, some mills and processors are turning away work because they cannot get the timber. But have they approached you for your timber? Do they know what timbers we grow or how much we have? According to the investigation, they do not. The grower’s fate currently lies in the hands of a force they cannot control.

The report explained that, if we raise awareness of our timbers and create a demand for them, we can, in turn, create a new market for them. New Zealand’s speciality timbers have the potential to sell well and for good prices especially in the top end housing and office market. Owners of executive houses are interested in the origin and story behind the more glamorous features in their homes which make speciality timbers a good fit. Being able to explain the provenance of your solid timber feature wall, floor, bench top or cladding makes for good dinner table banter.

Developing demand and branding

To develop demand, we need to raise the profile of speciality timbers and the report recommended the best way to do this is to address the market online.

The report outlined that the NZFFA has an excellent members’ website with Farm Forestry Timbers, containing good technical information for builders, architects and engineers. But the present format does not have the selling appeal required to lift the profile of speciality timbers.

The report suggested separating the sales function from membership. There was an opportunity in front of Farm Forestry Timbers to build and own the hub for all marketing of speciality timbers to develop something unique and outstanding that would attract the timber marketplace, high end users, architects and designers.

The report recommended a sophisticated, customer-friendly website which sells the timber and incorporates the Farm Forestry Timbers technical information and inventory of stock available now and into the short term future. Such a website would need to be constantly maintained and updated. In my opinion, professional help with this is essential to get the best result.

The report also described the advantages of branding and how brands can add value. Ideally there would be a brand name which represents all New Zealand grown speciality timbers. Farm Forestry Timbers or the NZFFA are not what the consumer wants to buy. Consumer brands should be built to appeal to the consumer, not the seller, who wants to buy a product with an identity.

Are we ready for change?

The process to achieve what the report proposed would not be quick. It would involve mass awareness and changing people’s perception and attitudes towards speciality timbers. Change takes time, but I believe the timing is right to start this process. We have a strong economy, burgeoning building industry, high demand for speciality timbers and many of us with trees reaching maturity. Some may wonder whether we have enough timber? I for one have never questioned this. With good systems in place scarcity can play in our favour as has been the case with many other primary products. Without doubt there is the bigger opportunity to increase the demand for planting and researching speciality timbers and in turn, lift the profile of what NZFFA has been doing well for over 50 years.

Footnote from Dean Satchell

Although the Promotions committee decided to not follow the specific plan of action recommended by Devcich Consulting, we agreed that growers’ levy funding should go into development of markets for locally grown speciality timbers. Rather than funding an all-out marketing campaign, the approach decided on is one of steady market development and based on the selling platform already in place on the farm forestry website. The Promotions committee and Farm Forestry Timbers agreed that the existing Farm Forestry Timbers online market place has well divided sales and membership functions and was a good platform to base further initiatives that promote speciality timbers.

Initial plans to raise the profile of speciality timbers will include a series of seminars targeting architects, designers and others who specify timber, to both raise their awareness of locally produced product, but also to seek feedback on their needs.

Barriers continue to plague markets for locally produced speciality timber. For example, almost all imported speciality timber is environmentally certified and of consistently high quality, whereas no local product is certified and sawn timber and log quality is variable. Furthermore, the NZ building code currently constrains use of speciality timbers.

These issues will take time to address and an expensive one-off marketing campaign was seen as less cost-effective in the longer term than a progressive approach to market development.

The first steps will be to improve and maintain the online marketing platform and to resource the trading desk to link buyers with sellers. To date the Farm Forestry Timbers marketplace has been entirely user-driven with no industry funding, which has proven to be less than adequate. To get the ball rolling the website will be upgraded and trading will be actively facilitated. These initiatives will provide a feedback loop to guide next steps such as considering re-branding.

Dean Satchell is the chairperson of Farm Forestry Timbers and NZFFA representative on the Joint Promotions committee.