Interior Building Materials: How Loyal Are Builders and Contractors to Dealers vs. Brands?

Rounding out our blog series on brand loyalty, we explore builders and contractors’ loyalty to dealers versus brands when purchasing interior building materials.  A parallel examination of builders and contractors’ loyalty when purchasing exterior building products revealed a slight lean towards dealer loyalty when presented with the dilemma, dealer or brand. 

We asked builders and contractors a hypothetical question, framed as the following:

If your preferred dealer stopped carrying your preferred brand of [PRODUCT], would you stay with your preferred dealer and switch to another brand, or switch to a new dealer that carries your preferred brand?

Identical to the industry average for exterior building products, interior building material purchasers report slightly more loyalty to their dealers over preferred brands. Dealer loyalty is even more pronounced when it comes to purchasing flooring. In contrast, for plumbing fixtures and cabinets, loyalty leans towards brand.

The data indicates potential consequences for building material suppliers who lose or resign their dealer partner positions, though far less pronounced than what was reported for exterior product categories.