The ability to have small pieces available for a small, one off job instead of having to buy a whole length of material that you don't have a use for the remainder.
Adam has the best customer service around. He goes above and beyond to make sure every customer is happy and taken care of in a timely fashion. I have already recommended many people to this location.
The strength of your business, imho, is in offering the greatest variety of small volume products for folks like me, who are prototyping a lot and need access to a wide variety of materials and sizes. I'm not worried about large volume, as that can be negotiated when moving closer to production. The only improvement that I would suggest is offering a wider variety of associated products, like the extruded t-bar and hardware and some of the more common fasteners (including rivet nuts).
Why do I shop with your business?
1. Good stock variety - could be better. A lot of aluminum extrusions can be used in my line of products, and many small manufacturers like myself are not high volume factories. Variety over volume. If you don't maintain variety, you would see less of me.
2. Access to storage of materials. If you have the stock, I don't need room in my small facility to store what I may need. You're still quite a distance from me, but close enough to use bus service to get to and from. Again, keeping at least a small amount of a variety of products means your service is valuable to me.
3. Access to shears for more manageable sizes. I run a 25" x 25" CNC machine and have a 24" brake. I have no room to manage full sheets or lengths of materials, especially as I don't own a car or truck and depend on a bike with a trailer, or the bus to transport. Being able to buy transportable product sizes is great.
Something to consider - are you a metal products supplier, or are you a supplier to makers? If you're happy and viable as just a supplier of short run metal and your bottom line is good - don't change. If you want to identify as a place for makers, there are quite a few other products that could be added to your catalogue to provide a more full-service operation, without a lot of overhead. One example would be stocking some select products from Hammond, like their aluminum project boxes. If your regular clients have CNC machines, then there may be a use for 2 colour engraving laminates - it's hard for me to find good sources for that. I really miss "the old days" when I could go into an electronic parts supply house and have access to a wide variety of products for prototyping and short run production, as well as staff knowledgeable about how to best use the materials!
Finally, the fellow I dealt with was friendly and I felt welcome. That wasn't the case at another of the Metal Supermarket locations. Good service people are your strongest asset!
My Lady and I went into Metal Supermarkets Nanaimo today to get some flat stock for our Van seats. We barely made it in before closing but Rob accommodated us regardless.
In fact, Rob provided us with one of the best customer experiences we have had in recent memory. He provided us with great advice, was very patient and cut all of our metal perfectly to size.
Thank you Rob 😊