When a nearby competitor is acquired, some contractors review suppliers. How dealer reps decide which accounts are in play, what to ask and how to earn a first quote.
When a nearby competitor is acquired, some of its contractor customers will review where they buy, but many will stay. Treat the news as a reason to ask, not a sure win. Pull three short lists from your own records: contractors who split purchases between you and that competitor, quotes you lost to it, and active builders who have never bought from you. Rank them by fit and current work. Then call about a specific job or category, ask what has changed for them, and ask to quote one job. Check in with your own best accounts at the same time, because the new owner may be calling them too.
This guide is for outside and inside sales reps and sales managers at lumber yards and multi-category building materials dealers. The same approach works for drywall and insulation dealers, millwork suppliers and window and door showrooms that compete with a newly acquired local supplier.
Consolidation has made this a common situation. In an October 2026 LBM Journal reader survey, the question itself pointed to more than $54 billion in completed and pending transactions since 2024. Large national companies now own many former local yards and specialty distributors.
Readers who answered that survey did not agree on what consolidation does to contractors. One dealer said it had added 18 contractors who used to buy from an acquired competitor. The same dealer said it also lost some jobs because the larger company priced the items contractors watch most very low. Another respondent expected some customers to choose large distributors for their reach and buying power.
Both can be true in the same market. Some contractors like what a larger supplier offers. Others notice changes after the sale and start comparing. At a June 2026 HBS Dealer panel, Russ Kathrein of Do it Best said standardization is a must for an acquirer, and that acquirers generally lose some of their most talented people within three to six months. He also said the whole-package story appeals to production builders but loses some of the scalability needed to serve custom builders and remodelers efficiently. In an older LBM Journal survey, one respondent noted that centralized purchasing can discourage a location from using a product or distributor it used before.
You cannot know in advance which contractors will feel those changes. That is why the first step is a short list and a question, not a market-wide price cut or a mass email.
Start with information you already have. Each list answers a different question.
Split accounts. These are current customers who buy some categories from you and the rest elsewhere. Look at purchase history by category. A framer who buys lumber and sheathing from you but never buys trusses, windows or hardware is probably buying those somewhere. If your reps have noted in the CRM that the acquired company is that other supplier, these accounts go to the top.
Recent lost quotes. Pull quotes from the last year where the outcome was recorded as lost to that competitor. A contractor who asked you to price a job already considers you. If your team does not record who won lost quotes, a lost quote review is the habit to start now, so the next market change is easier to read.
Active non-customers. These are builders and remodelers in your trade area who are pulling permits or bidding work but have never bought from you, or bought once and stopped. Permit activity tells you who has jobs coming. It does not tell you who supplies them, so this list needs a conversation before it means much.
Keep each list short enough for a rep to work in the next few weeks. Ten to twenty names per rep is more useful than every contractor in the county.
Not every contractor on the lists is worth pursuing. Rank each name using questions like these:
Contractors with work starting soon and a clear fit go first. A contractor with no active jobs can wait for a later check-in.
Contractors hear plenty about deals between suppliers. They care about their own jobs. Open with something specific to them: a job you saw permitted, a category they do not buy from you, or a quote you lost last spring.
Useful questions include:
Let the contractor bring up problems. Do not criticize the competitor or predict that its service will get worse. You do not know that, and a contractor who is happy with the new owner will remember the comment.
Sometimes a salesperson or yard manager leaves the acquired company and wants to join yours. Their customer relationships may follow, but get legal advice before hiring anyone who may be bound by a non-compete or non-solicitation agreement.
The reader who gained 18 contractors also lost jobs on price. A larger competitor can afford very low prices on the items contractors check most often, such as common dimensional lumber and sheet goods. Matching those prices on every quote can cost margin without winning the account.
Instead, quote the whole package and explain it. Walk the contractor through what the quote covers, which items you recommend and why, and how delivery will be planned for their job. Present the quote in a short review rather than sending a total by email. A first quote that the contractor understands builds more trust than a low price on a few lines.
Record what you learn after every conversation: who supplies them now, who makes the decision, what job is next and when you will follow up. That record turns one call into a pursuit plan the whole team can see.
The acquired competitor is now part of a larger company, and it will likely want to grow in your market too. At the HBS Dealer panel on recent big-box acquisitions, one executive described the early work as introductions to customers and sales forces. The acquiring companies now have large professional sales teams.
So while reps pursue new accounts, managers should list the top accounts each rep owns and make sure each gets a visit or a call soon. Check for warning signs in purchase history: a category that dropped off, fewer orders in the past few months, or open quotes that went quiet. A good customer who hears from you first is harder to win away.
The following example is illustrative, not a real customer.
A drywall and insulation dealer learns that a competitor across town has been bought by a national distributor. The sales manager asks each rep for a short list. One rep finds four commercial interior contractors who buy insulation from the dealer but no board. Another finds six quotes from the past year recorded as lost to that competitor. A third lists contractors the dealer has quoted but never sold to.
The reps call the split accounts first and ask to quote board on each contractor's next job. They call the lost-quote contractors about upcoming bids. The manager visits the dealer's five largest accounts within two weeks. Each rep records the current supplier, the decision maker and the next job in the CRM.
About three months after the acquisition, review the effort with each rep. For every name on the lists, ask:
Look at the answers by account, not as one total. You will learn which types of contractors were open to a second supplier and which were not. That tells you where to keep calling and when to stop.
SalesJack connects your ERP, quoting and permit data with your CRM so reps can work these lists without building spreadsheets. Its AI matches permit leads to existing customers and addresses, and it groups connected quotes by project to show cross-sell opportunities in the categories you sell. With SalesJack Radar, a manager can ask plain-language questions across that connected data, such as "Which of my customers have active permits but no recent orders?" or "What has this builder purchased across its jobsites?"
See how SalesJack works for building materials dealers, or book a demo.
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