In just 20 years, Lumber Liquidators has grown from one entrepreneur’s idea – buy excess wood from construction sites and sell it at a deep discount – to a nationwide retail operation giving Home Depot and Lowe’s plenty of competition in the flooring market.
American Shipper’s December cover story on Lumber Liquidators charts the company’s rapid sales growth and accompanying supply chain challenges. Those include “squeezing a lot of import freight through a small pipeline,” as volumes are on pace to grow 10 to 15% this year.
Based on the trade data supplied by Datamyne, that volume represents a sizable chunk – around a fifth – of wood product imports coming in through Norfolk, where the port authority named Lumber Liquidators “shipper of the year.”