Wood and board samples: what to send a builder or contractor and what to keep

Send a builder or contractor one small kit in one envelope: six to ten finish pieces, each fixed to a sheet that names it and gives its code, thickness and edge. Keep the full-size boards, the odd experiments and the pieces you cannot repeat at the factory. A kit that is easy to carry gets shown to the client. A loose piece in a plastic bag gets lost in the car.

Why do loose samples disappear?

A contractor gets samples from many suppliers. They arrive in a carton, lie in a site office, and one by one go to a client's drawer or under a chair. Nothing on a bare piece of laminate says whose it is, what it is called or what it costs.

So the piece is handled once, judged on colour alone, and then forgotten. When the client says "that grey one", nobody can tell which supplier's grey it was.

What goes in the kit?

Pick the pieces that sell, not the pieces that look best on a table. For a plywood and laminate maker the kit might hold the five finishes that account for most orders, one premium option, and one cut section that shows the core and the number of plies.

For a timber seller, a short length of each species in raw and polished form helps, since contractors judge the polished face and the cut end separately. Add a corner of the edge banding you pair with each finish. Mismatched edging causes its share of arguments.

Leave out anything you cannot supply for the next six months. A finish that is being phased out should not be handed to a builder about to specify it for a 40-flat block.

What does the sheet look like?

Put each piece on a stiff card, or a single folded sheet, and print the same layout every time. Here is a layout that fits on an A4 page:

[Your name] finish kit    Ref: K-0xx    Sent to: ________   Date: ____
Code | Name        | Species/board   | Thickness | Edge     | Sold as
 F12 | Honey teak  | Veneer on BWR   | 18 mm     | PVC 2 mm | per sheet
 F15 | Ash grey    | Laminate on MDF | 18 mm     | ABS      | per sheet
 ...
Daylight note: look at the piece near a window, not under a tube light.
Call or WhatsApp [number] with the code. Ask for [name].

The reference number matters most. When a call comes in quoting K-014, you know who got it, when, and what it contained.

What should you keep at the factory?

Hold back three things. The first is the full-size board: it is heavy and expensive to send, and a contractor who truly needs one will visit or pay for it. The second is any experimental or one-off finish, since a sample that cannot be repeated is a promise you cannot keep. The third is your price list. Send a rate sheet separately, with a validity date, rather than printing prices on the card where they will outlive the quote.

For example: a laminate and veneer maker selling to Vijayawada contractors

A made-up laminate and veneer maker (the maker, the contractors and all the figures here are invented) supplies interior contractors in Vijayawada, who fit out flats for builders. For years it sent loose cut pieces with a visiting card clipped on.

Then a contractor wanted "the walnut" for a 60-flat project and phoned the factory. The factory had two walnuts and no way to tell which one the contractor held. The order went to a rival whose card carried a code, and the maker lost days matching shades by courier before losing the job.

It now sends an envelope of eight pieces on one coded sheet. Each dispatch goes in a notebook against the contractor's name, and three days after delivery someone rings with one question: did the kit reach the client? Where it had, the maker asks the contractor to write the code into the material schedule, so the next order arrives quoting it.

After two months the notebook showed this, with the figures made up for the example: 24 kits sent, 15 of the 24 contractors reached on the follow-up call, 9 asking for a quote, and 4 orders. The four orders all quoted a kit code. Five of the 24 contractors had passed the kit to a client or builder who then rang the factory directly. The other nine contractors could not be reached or had not opened the kit, and six of those nine mostly fit single flats, so the next batch went mainly to contractors with block projects. The kits cost about ₹450 each to assemble and courier, roughly ₹10,800 for the 24, against four orders.

When do you send a bigger sample?

When the order is big enough that a wrong finish would cost more than the courier. A builder buying for a whole block should see a door-sized or panel-sized piece and sign off the code in writing. A contractor doing one flat does not need that.

Charge for large samples, or credit them against the order. Give them away and contractors learn that your boards are free to borrow.

How do you know the kit worked?

Count, do not guess. For each dispatch, note the date, whether the contractor called, whether a quote followed, whether an order came and which kit code it quoted. A simple notebook with one line per kit is enough. If a kit goes to thirty contractors and brings no calls, look first at whom you chose, then at what you put in the envelope. A contractor who only ever does single flats will never need ten finishes, so the count is also how you learn who to stop sending to.

Put the first kit together this week

Pick the one contractor with a block project coming and send a single kit: six finishes on a coded sheet, with the reference noted in your notebook against the contractor's name. Keep the notebook, the master sheet for each kit version and one spare of every kit in the factory, so that when a call quotes K-014 you can lay the spare on the desk and describe exactly what the caller holds. Update the code when the range changes, and do not reuse a code for a different kit. How other furniture and board buyers decide is on the furniture and wood products page. If you want help building the kit and the log around it with sales collateral development, tell us what you need.