Wolf, the kitchen cabinet supplier and provider of building products, has created the Wolf Key Buyer Index (KBI), a metric that offers a monthly snapshot of sentiment among independent dealers.
Wolf will use KBI to measure how building materials buyers see the near-term future of the residential construction industry. The data for the KBI is gathered from a monthly survey of key buyers at independent building materials dealers in Wolf’s 18-state sales territory. The initial survey, from the week of March 23, 2012, found that 63.8 percent of respondents reported their purchasing would increase in the following four weeks, 31.9 percent said purchasing would remain about the same, and 4.3 percent said their purchasing would decline.
Based on these responses, Wolf calculated the initial Key Buyer Index at 79.8. A Wolf KBI score of 50 reflects a neutral outlook; a score above 50 reflects a positive outlook; and a score below 50 reflects a negative outlook.
“Wolf maintains ongoing communications and close relationships with hundreds of independent dealers,” said Tom Wolf, Wolf CEO. “The Wolf KBI captures their near-term sentiment in a statistically significant way. We can share this new and compelling leading indicator of building activity with dealers, manufacturers, builders, the trade media and others.”
Wolf will survey its customers and publish the Key Buyer Index each month in an effort to forecast industry sentiment and identify trends. The company will also develop a workable set of statistical adjustments for the index to reflect seasonal, market and product category variations.
For more information on the Wolf Key Buyer Index, click here.
