Online Shopping for building materials

Just a tip and endorsement to pass along for procuring some of your personally selected building supplies... we wanted and tried to support local / regional business while building our house... but these places just make it almost impossible to do so... for example...

We are putting lots of lighting in the house... > 100 3" recessed lights along... went to Friedman Electric and talked them about what we are doing... they came back with a price of $154 per each recessed light. Went to Lowe's... spoke to the lighting department manager... ended up with exactly the lights we want (3" recessed stainless steel trim) which were $11.98 shelf price... volume discount to $10 each. Total savings is > $14,000. I am not making this up. We also spoke to Friedman about doing LED rope lighting... needed about 75'. Their quote was $1375. Search around... you will find this for less than $150. Other lights we are doing from IKEA... lots of low voltage stuff, and a fraction of the cost of the local stores. Well worth the drive to IKEA...

Another example... we went to Eastern Penn Supply Company for plumbing fixtures. Their prices are easily 25% or more versus what you can find online and have it shipped to you... toilets that EPSCO was quoting $600+ for... we picked up online for $380. And this was after we had agreed with the salesman that we would email our list of requirement.... which we did... but he "never got a chance to respond to"... very, very disappointing.

So doesn't it cost a fortune to ship a toilet across the country? Surprisingly... no... as long as you are not shipping things via 1-day or 2-day shipping. In fact, the places that we are using ship most of their orders for no charge (i.e. free shipping for orders over $99 or $199 etc.). Our experience has been great so far... we've received two sinks, a two piece toilet, toilet bowl, 2 microwaves... all items ordered on Tuesday or Wednesday... and received Thursday or Friday. Great customer service (i.e. lots of emails, fast updates)... the only disappointment has been that in some cases (like Homeclick.com) their real-time inventory tracking does not seem 100% accurate (so an item shows as in-stock in their catalog... but then shows a delay once the item is in your cart). This has only happened once, but it is a watchout. I had another case at needplumbingsupplies.com where the toilet we ordered was supposedly instock... so I ordered it... but then got an email the next day that there was going to be a 5-day delay. I cancelled the order - no questions asked.

The prices fluctuate pretty quickly... i ordered 2 toilet seats at ~$50 a piece... then noticed the next day the price had dropped to $37 each.

The other downside is that these shipment do generate a lot of trash... big shipping boxes stuffed with foam... and some items would be expensive to return (so you need to make sure you know exactly what you want).

Places we are using:
http://www.amazon.com - they have a good selection... I am already an amazon.com Prime member (unlimited 2-day shipping for $79 per year... and we order a lot from amazon so it is worth it)... their prices are not always the lowest... but very good customer service, and again, they carry a nice assortment.

http://vidavici.com - good selection... prices are a mixed bag (some average... some very low)... free shipping on orders over $50

http://www.needplumbingsupplies.com - most items have free shipping... carries lots of great brands... but I have not seen how to check status of my orders directly on their site (i.e. their back office stuff is not well put together). But has good customer service w/ live / online chat... and fast email responses.

http://homeclick.com - this one comes up in a lot of search results... seems to be a pretty good selection... and the site operates well...this is one where I would have expected lowest prices across the board... but instead they seem to have a spread of prices.

Overall - if you know what you want... I strongly recommend using sites like this for the cost savings they offer... at least until the local providers start getting their pricing and service in order. Of course, if you are developing multiple properties, you obviously get more pull with the local guys... but if you are building a single home... the sites I listed above are the place to go...