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A note from Identify Digital
Howarth Timber & Building Supplies
Hi Nick,
I'll be straight — this is a cold approach. We build ecommerce platforms for timber and building supplies businesses, properly connected to ERP and stock systems.
I came across Howarth Timber while looking at regional suppliers who've grown significantly and wanted to get in touch. I put this page together first so you can see what we actually looked at, rather than just taking my word for it.
What we found — The business
70+ years and a 29-branch network is a serious operation
Established in the 1950s and now running 29 branches across the UK, you've built a genuinely substantial distribution business. Timber, building materials, plumbing, heating, landscaping, aggregates, drainage — the range is broad, and the fact that it's family-owned across multiple generations says a lot about how it's been run.
The question that jumped out when we looked is: how does a trade customer actually order from you today?
Est. 1950s
29 branches across UK
Family-owned, multi-generational
Timber, building materials, plumbing, landscaping
Signal — Trade ordering
No visible online ordering for trade customers
With 29 branches and a product range covering multiple categories, the most obvious gap from the outside is the absence of an online trade ordering platform. From what we could see, customer contact is phone or email. For trade customers ordering regularly, that means their order depends on your team being available and the stock check being manual. At this scale, that's a real friction point.
Signal — Stock visibility
29 branches means complex inventory to coordinate
Multi-branch stock management is genuinely hard. A customer in one region ordering timber might not know whether stock is available at their nearest branch without calling. And your team fielding those calls is time that doesn't need to be spent that way. We've integrated live stock visibility across multi-branch setups before — the value tends to be immediate for both your team and the customer.
Signal — Branch growth
Growing the branch network without ecommerce infrastructure to match
Expanding to 29 locations is a significant achievement. The challenge we often see at this stage is that the sales and ordering process hasn't scaled the same way as the physical footprint. An online trade account platform — with trade pricing, account history, and real-time stock — is what lets the branch network work harder without proportionally more admin.
What we could help with
- Trade account portal — online ordering with account-specific pricing, credit terms, and order history
- ERP or stock system integration — real-time stock visibility across all 29 branches
- B2B and B2C in one platform — trade and retail can share a catalogue with different pricing rules
- Quote-to-order workflow — for larger or bespoke orders that need pricing before confirming
- Branch stock allocation and fulfilment routing — orders go to the right branch automatically
About us
Why we're relevant here
We're Identify Digital — a development agency based in Wakefield. We build ecommerce platforms for suppliers and distributors, connected properly to ERP and stock systems. We've built for timber suppliers, plumbing distributors, and building materials businesses. The differentiator is integration — stock sync, order flow, trade pricing, multi-channel. Most agencies can't do it properly. We can.
If any of this resonates, the easiest next step is a quick call — no obligation, just a conversation about whether there's a fit.
Book a call with Liam Or reply directly to the email that brought you here.
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Based on 83 stellar reviews
Based on 83 stellar reviews
