How Transparent Transactions Help Construction Material Vendors and Customers

Venzer believes transparency increases trust and growth in the construction industry.

It is no surprise that trying to find the right building material vendor for a project can be overwhelming for the people that are responsible for purchasing materials. This includes homeowners, with very little building experience, architects, property managers, and others. In fact, in the U.S. alone there are about 300,000 establishments selling construction materials! With so many choices, customers need a way to quickly develop a shortlist of potential matches for their custom projects.

When people are renovating a home, office building, or other types of complex properties, they need to have confidence and trust in the material vendors who supply their materials. Venzer came up with a solution to the problem.

How Venzer Builds Trust in Construction Transactions

At Venzer, we believe this begins with being transparent from the start of a project. Giving customers realistic expectations about costs, delivery timelines, product specifications, scope, and other details that allow them to have peace of mind and create more realistic budgets for their renovations.

We offer material vendors an opportunity to be transparent with their customers. Each vendor creates a profile (like LinkedIn), which allows them to describe their business, their specialization and showcase their most up-to-date products. They can provide overall product details, like shipping lead times. and manufacturing locations. This also makes it easier for customers, architects, property managers to find the right vendor more efficiently and quickly. Whether it’s for an interior remodel, window replacement, construction project, or other type of project. This data offers customers an efficient way to search and to match their project needs.

That’s why having all the material vendor information your customers need in one place online can accelerate your project timeline, reduce stress, and provide the quality they desire at the cost they expect. In addition, it saves vendors a lot of time and helps mitigate misunderstandings, because they receive well-informed customers.

Common challenges:

The typical vendor search without Venzer goes like this:

1. A customer is looking for a window vendor and they typically go on Google to search for a “window supplier.”

2. They are then met with 100 choices on Google map search and do not know who to call. (1 hour)

Eventually, after 10 calls, to different vendors, they think they found the right vendor for their project and begin to explain their needs over the phone. (2 hours + follow ups)

3. Then the vendor and customer discuss the project without seeing pictures of the renovation or space. Already, miscommunications occur and result in a long guessing game. (2 hours + follow ups)

4. This move goes on and on, until the customer decides to drive to the vendor’s location to get more informed. So far, the customer has already spent 3-5 hours searching! This process can happen several times prior to finding the product!

5.It’s the wrong vendor

6. Call other vendors

7. Visit 3 locations/vendors

The Venzer Solution:

We’ve created a tool to fix these issues:

We created a double sided marketplace, where we connect customers to vendors.

For vendors, it’s a place to show their portfolio of work and to be transparent with their specializations, manufacturing locations, lead times, and other details. For customers, it is a place to organize their vendors and share their project site photos with vendors to avoid miscommunication.

For Vendors:

We’ve made it easy for vendors by providing them with profiles that have comprehensive details about their services, quality, costs, location, costs, and more.

Vendors can customize their profile on Venzer to reflect their brand and showcase unique offerings. They can include logos, portfolio images, and a compelling description of their business to make a strong impression on potential clients. It's free marketing!

We strongly believe in visual communication in the construction industry and have made it a priority by encouraging vendors to showcase their most beautiful projects and pay close attention to the quality of their pictures, inspired by the Airbnb model.

For Customers:

Our searching tool offers a wide range of categories inspired by the Architectural Building Code to search material vendors based on the type of building or materials:

·   Architectural (windows, flooring, building envelope)

·   Building Materials (concrete, stone, wood)

·   Building Science (insulation, drainage, sealants)

·   Consultants (plumbing, electrical, mechanical)

·   Occupancy Type (residential, institutional, commercial)

·   Programs (kitchens, offices, bedrooms)

·   Certifications (LEED, ADA, Green Guard)

Customers also have access to an incredible tool we call “My Boards.” It is a Pinterest-like organizational system that allows customers (like architects, property managers) to “save” vendor profiles per project and category. This ensures that the customer always has up-to-date details on the vendor, regardless of whether a project is active or on pause.

Within the “My Boards” section, we offer an exciting new feature called “Site Photos”. For example, if an architect is working on a residential renovation project, they can upload their live project photos in their “Site Photos” folder. On the messenger chat feature, they can share their current site photos with vendors they are in contact with to communicate. For more information about “How to use “ Venzer Boards please click here.

Filters Expedite Sales

Customers can select from a list of filters to help match them with the perfect vendor for their project. These filters target vendors' company location, manufacturing locations, average project budget, project scale (how many square feet), company type, lead times and more.

With this sophisticated filtering tool, customers can better find material vendors that are best matched for their project.



Quality Assurance with Transparent Sourcing and Pricing Quotes

When Venzer provides detailed information about where a supplier sources their materials, customers can be assured of the quality of our data. Our process builds trust in the construction industry via verification methods that includes reviewing business registration, complaints, third party reviews, certifications, warranty plan, and credit. Think about it the way you feel about purchasing food. It is good to know where it was grown and how it was processed. Sourcing information provides more insight for making an important purchasing decision.

Customers can also use the Venzer platform to get quotes from vendors that itemize the cost of materials and services (feature currently under development).This process allows customers to see exactly what they are paying for, minimizing the risk of hidden costs or unexpected services. We are currently developing a standardized bidding form that will allow customers to compare quotes with even greater clarity and guidance. Stay tuned!

Final thoughts

Venzer is an incredible tool that solves the lack of transparency in the construction industry by:

• Having realistic expectations (on products, lead times, etc.)
• Using sophisticated categories
• Matching you with leads
• Ensuring quality data
• Gathering vendor information on one platform
• Employing verification methods
• Giving comprehensive details
• Sourcing Transparency

If you are interested in becoming a Venzer vendor or customer, sign up here. It's free!

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