The present market situation is dull despite of GST coming down to 18% on Ply, boards, Doors, MDF, PB, Decorative veneer, Furniture, Hardware and other building materials. Who so ever the Ply Reporter team visited be it distributor, retailer or a stockiest, everyone sounded desperate for some business pick up and faster payments. Since earnings are not matching with rising expenses and Payment recovery is a growing worry, the puzzle is getting trickier. People ask us, is it slow for them or for all?
My finding is that ‘present market is definitely slow for majority of industries & traders’ but there are still a few who are growing and gaining bigger market share. At any point, if there is abundant supply of products then tantrums from the buyers increase; prices come down and credit period stretch up. In wood panel trade it is the dealer who takes the position as a ring master often because supply exceeds demand almost often in our country. The moment supply grows, a seller gets desperate, panic starts and concludes that market is very slow, payments are at risk. The same applies to distributors and retailers because number of shops and stockiest are also growing rapidly.
I think ‘Mandee’ is a word people are getting too obsessed with. Business man should not worry much about payment security because doing business in Indian building material space always comes with certain risks which most are immune to. Instead working at ground level to support the sales is more important. Thankfully in Wood panel industry & trade, the cases related to defaulting are less than 1.0% but the noise about it portrays a bigger fear as if it is a widespread practice. Wood Panel dealers still are the good ones who work very hard to honor their commitment. The problem of delay in payments is certainly on rise but there are very few who will default or run away and we can’t really safeguard when competition goes to level of “survival of the fittest”.
It is evident that 18 percent GST has not been able to lift up the market sentiments during last two weeks. The observation we could gather at large is “the products that are moving upward in sales despite dullness are Doors, Decorative plywood, MDF, 0.8 mm Decorative laminates, Door skin laminates, WPC boards and Laminated Floorings”. The products that are more or less stagnant are “Plywood, Particle board, Film Face plywood, 1.0 mm decorative Laminate and moulded doors”. It is happening because market is now driven by end users, not the investors. Hence tick to the ground and work, expand your connect upto the level of small dealers. There is nothing to fear from growing competition if basics like infrastructure, quality, capital and vision are in place, just keep tuning them for more flexibility.
We at Ply Reporter are working 24x7 to provide new platforms and tools, with different magazines and web portals. We had plenty of important learning from 2017. We are confident that year 2018 will be brighter for all of us!
Let’s welcome 2018 with mindset of change and betterment.