Market Intelligence

Lumber Intelligence Is Everything

Olympic Industries. North Vancouver, BC

Olympic Industries operates worldwide, providing immense advantages for our building material partners. Because we monitor all lumber markets, we know what’s happening in all markets. The data is intricate, but patterns begin to emerge when you begin to untie the complex knot of global lumber economies. Our Data & Derivatives team understands lumber market patterns, enabling us to forecast domestic conditions with unrivalled accuracy.

The benefits to our partners are twofold: not only can we act in the moment to help them capitalize on immediate building material opportunities, but we can also simultaneously advise them in developing strategies to best maneuver in the global lumber market long term.

Market Trends

Relentless Lumber Innovation

Western Red Cedar being staged for shipment, Pacific Lumber Remanufacturing. Surrey BC

Many lumber companies specialize in one or two particular regions, products, or markets. While that approach has been effective in the past, at Olympic Industries we know the lumber market is no longer simply regional, and so we operate in numerous markets across the world. Plenty of companies can put together a handful of the pieces to the puzzle, whereas we’re able to see the complete picture. And with this knowledge we can predict with confidence how the lumber market will move.

Traditionally, the lumber industry has been slow to innovate. At Olympic Industries we’ve made innovation a priority, constantly searching out the newest methods, technologies, and talent to maximize profits for both ourselves and our trade partners. Every year we add more powerful tools to our kit, harnessing new technologies to sharpen our insights. And every day we get better and better at analyzing the information we gather, enabling us to accurately forecast trends further and further ahead. The more you know, the more confidently you can act. Every choice that we make at Olympic Industries is backed by an unbeatable combination of veteran industry knowledge and exhaustive trend analysis.

The lumber industry has been around a long time. Today, many of our industry leaders are beginning to retire, and it grows increasingly vital to recruit and mentor young people to replenish the talent pool. It’s our responsibility to build the next generation of our industry. To that end, we’ve made a radical commitment to search out the most promising emerging talent and nurture their development through a thorough and supportive mentoring process. Over the last decade, Olympic Industries has recruited over 30 new hires to our trading floor. These trainees usually spend at least a year at various divisions throughout.

We see each trader on our floor as an investment, an integral part of the team. We continue to perfect our training process with each candidate that goes through it. Olympic Industries has seen steady growth over the past five years, and we are not stopping. The exchange of knowledge, experience, and ideas between our veteran members and our newer hires is one of the most exciting aspects of the company. At Olympic Industries we believe we’re more than a team of lumber traders — we’re a family. When our partners win, we win. The success of one is the success of all.

Risk Management

Maximizing Trust and Accuracy in Lumber Trading

Magma Transload. Squamish, BC

Our trade partners place significant trust in us as a wood supplier, and we take on that responsibility with the utmost diligence. At Olympic Industries, we take every possible measure to protect our customers from risk. To that end, we have assembled an expert team who is focused on trading derivatives on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to serve our clients. In this way, we can manage prices as a means to minimize the potential for loss for both our customers and lumber mills.

By using Futures to set prices, our lumber partners can rest secure in the knowledge that no surprises await them down the road. In turn, equipped with this knowledge, they can more precisely plan their future lumber projects to ensure that they deliver on time while maximizing margin.

Olympic Industries’ reputation as a wood supplier is built on trust, which we’ve developed over decades working honestly and transparently with long-term partners. Our customers and lumber mills return to us year after year because they know that their investment is safe with us, as we’ve proven time and again. These kinds of sustained, collaborative relationships are the foundation of our wood distribution business, and those relationships are built on trust.

Global Arbitrage

Global Perspective of Forest Products

General Assembly. Nanaimo, BC

Being a global leader requires a global perspective. We compete in international forest product markets around the world, so we can see how events in China exert very tangible influence on conditions in New Zealand, or how fluctuations in Europe alter the market here in North America. Every forest product region is interlinked, and a splash in one makes ripples in another.

We can leverage our global reach to better serve our customers at a regional level. We constantly collect and analyze data across all forest product markets. Understandably, our customers are focused on their particular region and expertise in forest products. But the breadth of information we have access to can still prove beneficial to them.

Lumber is a highly volatile commodity. We occupy a unique overview position in which we can observe all markets at once. As we monitor the prices and supplies in various regions around the world, we’re able to notify our customers of the best opportunities regarding when, what, and how to buy. Together we can take advantage of regional price discrepancies to find exactly what a client needs for the lowest cost. Often this results in substantial savings, ensuring Olympic Industries customers get the most from every dollar.

Customers come to Olympic Industries for much more than just our exceptional forest products. They’re reaping the full benefits of tested industry expertise paired with unsurpassed market analytics. It’s this Olympic Industries advantage that turns initial sales into relationships that last decades.

Merchandising

Eliminating Wood Waste With Precision Loads

Visscher Lumber. Chilliwack, BC

Many companies are interested only in moving a certain quantity of wood products — the specific needs of individual customers are not necessarily a top priority. As a result, they’re inflexible, offering only certain tallies and loads. While those options may contain the wood product that a customer needs, there’s often excess material that they’re forced to buy.

Olympic Industries' buying power and market insight enable us to provide a customized solution which addresses a customer’s specific needs, while often saving them money in the process. We’ve worked with many of our partner lumber mills for years, and as preferred customers, we’re able to request custom loads on behalf of our clients. In this way, we can adjust tallys to moderate pricing and help our customers fill in specific products to maintain a balanced inventory. Our reputation and flexibility ensure our customers get exactly what they need when needed, at the best value for their dollar.

Our stature in the wood industry also allows us to acquire large volumes of product and distribute a spectrum of tallys and grades to the regions across the globe which have the greatest demand. With our global wood market knowledge, we can target these areas of opportunity. And our flexibility and dexterity enable us to move rapidly to supply the specific wood products they need. This powerful combination of intelligence and speed maximizes profits.

Logistics

From Lumber Inventory to Final Destination

Blind Channel DLS. Squamish, BC

It doesn’t matter how much wood you sell if you can’t get it to your buyers on time. At Olympic Industries, we don’t consider our work done until the wood product is in our customers’ hands. That’s why we have teams dedicated exclusively to both ocean and overland freight. Our freight experts oversee every step of your forest product’s journey — from its inventory location to its final destination.

Freight is becoming a more complex enterprise by the day. Demand for vehicles is rising while the pool of drivers and operators shrinks yearly. Fortunately, given our longstanding relationships with truck and rail companies across North America, Olympic Industries can ensure our customers’ orders get priority. We communicate directly with carriers, so we always know exactly where your shipment is in its journey and can rapidly address any issues that may arise. We’re well-versed in the complexities of international forest product shipping for those interested in wood import and export.

We’ve achieved this level of expertise by building logistics into our training and mentorship programs from day one. Freight dynamics is an integral part of our training process—all new team members spend at least a year working in the transportation division before they step foot on the lumber trading floor. This ensures every one of our lumber traders understands the importance of freight and has the knowledge to best serve our wood customers. Every step of the way, your product is in capable hands.