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Devon-based Wooduchoose Ltd has utilised features of its wood products comparison website – www.wooduchoose.com – to help combat the nationwide timber shortage, which is starting to seriously affect the UK construction industry.

The shortage of timber supply in the UK has been partly caused by the increase in construction and renovation projects since 2020’s initial lockdown. Issues also exist when it comes to sourcing timber – for example, Scandinavia has experienced an unusually warm winter, which has therefore affected timber production. Wooduchoose.com helps UK-based joinery and construction firms to source materials and share resources, allowing customers to connect and receive prices from multiple joineries and timber merchants, for any wood product. Customers can choose from a range of over 10,000 profiles or use the made to match or bespoke joinery quoting wizard. At the core of Wooduchoose.com is the online ‘Woodutrade’ supplier management system, which allows timber suppliers and joineries to upload their own products and timber stock for sale.

“During the first lockdown, we saw a massive increase in three of our target groups –firstly, home crafters were buying timber from our suppliers then selling their products via our portal; secondly, architects were downloading more free technical drawings than usual for specification proposals; and thirdly, more home refurbishment and restoration companies were using our made to match service,” said Wooduchoose MD Paul Hayman.

Wooduchoose.com allows customers to search for products – such as architrave, sawn boards or planed square edge timber – in any wood species. As everything is made or cut to order and therefore requires a bespoke quote, the customer is given an instant indication as to product cost. With this information, the customer can then instruct Wooduchoose.com to search the country automatically, via an inbuilt artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, to find suitable pre-approved joineries and timber merchants able to fulfil their request. Each of these then provides the customer with an exact quote and time frame for their bespoke order.

“Since restrictions have eased, we’ve seen a lot more joinery firms signing up as Wooduchoose suppliers. They like receiving pre-qualified leads from customers as well as having an outlet for selling timber available in stock. This eases the timber shortage by allowing joinery firms and construction companies to search the whole country in order to find the timber they need,” adds Paul.

Reporting year-on-year growth, Wooduchoose is ideally suited to help the UK start to recover from the national timber shortage, by connecting and supporting the whole construction industry when it comes to the sourcing and fulfilling of timber requirements. For further information on Wooduchoose Ltd, visit www.wooduchoose.com.