Route to Market for Building Products: How Suppliers Get Into Projects Consistently

Building a good product is the easy part. Getting it consistently specified, purchased, and installed on construction projects is where most suppliers even well-funded, well-resourced ones find the going genuinely difficult.

Construction is not one market. It is thousands of individual projects, each with its own procurement process, its own decision-makers, and its own timeline. The challenge for suppliers is not just getting specified once. It is building a repeatable route to market that generates consistent project demand without depending entirely on relationships, cold calls, and chance.

This post breaks down how construction procurement actually works, why traditional supplier approaches struggle to scale, and what a sustainable route to market actually looks like.

How Construction Procurement Actually Works

The construction procurement process is more complex than most suppliers initially realise. For any given project, purchasing decisions happen at multiple levels the developer or owner sets the procurement framework, the main contractor manages the primary supply chain, and specialist subcontractors manage their own suppliers within that. A product might need to be specified at design stage, approved by the main contractor, and purchased by the installing subcontractor three different organisations with three different priorities.

The decision making timeline is equally complex. Some products are specified at design stage, months or years before they are purchased. Others are selected during the procurement phase. Some are decided by the subcontractor on site. And the person who writes the specification is often not the person who makes the purchasing decision.

This complexity is why most supplier approaches that work well in other industries trade shows, cold calling, product catalogues, advertising produce inconsistent results in construction. The buying process is too fragmented and too relationship dependent for these approaches to scale reliably.

Why Traditional Supplier Approaches Struggle to Scale

• Relationships don't scale. Knowing the right project manager at three GCs produces results on those relationships' projects. It does not give you access to the thousands of other projects happening simultaneously across the market.
• Estimator lists are incomplete and outdated. By the time you've been added to a GC's approved supplier list, the projects you wanted to be on have already been tendered.
• Trade shows generate brand awareness, not project access. You meet people. You exchange cards. You follow up. Rarely does this translate directly into being included in a live project's purchasing workflow.
• Cold outreach requires significant volume to produce results, and construction decision makers are among the most contacted professionals in any market. Response rates are low and declining.
• Being 'known in the market' is not the same as being present in the purchasing workflow. A supplier can have strong brand recognition in the industry and still miss most projects because nobody remembers to include them when the RFQs go out.

What a Scalable Route to Market Looks Like

Suppliers who have built genuinely scalable access to construction projects share a common characteristic: they are present in the places where projects actually make purchasing decisions, rather than in the places where construction professionals socialise.

This means being in the procurement workflow receiving RFQs directly, being able to price scopes quickly and accurately, and being visible to the companies doing the buying at the moment they are looking to buy. This is categorically different from being known in the market. Known suppliers get called when someone happens to remember them. Suppliers in the workflow get included systematically.

It also means being connected to the projects that match your product not every project, but the right projects. A specialist acoustic ceiling tile supplier does not need access to every construction project in the market. They need access to the commercial fit-out, hospitality, and education projects where acoustic performance is part of the specification. Indiscriminate market access is less valuable than targeted project access.

Getting Into the Procurement Workflow

The most effective route to market strategy for building products focuses on getting into procurement workflows before the buying decision, rather than trying to intercept it after.

This means engaging at design stage with architects and designers who specify your product category, so that your product is on the approved list when procurement begins. It means being connected to the contractors who buy your product type, so that RFQs come to you automatically rather than to whoever the estimator remembers. And it means having a digital presence in the platforms where construction projects actually procure not just a website and a product catalogue, but active participation in where purchasing decisions are being made.

Merlin Merchant is built exactly for this. It places suppliers inside the purchasing workflows of live construction projects not as an advertising platform, but as a functional part of how those projects procure. When a project team needs to price your product category, you receive the RFQ. When you price it, your quote enters the evaluation workflow. You are not waiting to be found. You are present in the process.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How long does it take to build a reliable route to market in construction?

A: Building a sustainable route to market through relationships alone typically takes three to five years. Getting into project procurement workflows through a platform like Merlin Merchant can compress this significantly suppliers report receiving their first project RFQs within weeks of onboarding. The key distinction is between passive presence (a listing, a catalogue) and active participation in purchasing workflows.

Q: Should we target GCs or subcontractors for product sales?

A: It depends on your product category and who makes the purchasing decision. For products specified at design stage, architects are the primary relationship. For materials bought by the installing trade, subcontractors are the buyer. For package supplied systems, the main contractor may be the decision maker. Understanding your decision-making chain is the starting point for any route to market strategy.

Q: Is it worth getting on an approved supplier list?

A: Yes, but approved supplier lists have significant limitations. They give you permission to bid they do not guarantee you receive RFQs. Many approved suppliers are listed but never contacted on projects because the estimator defaults to their regular sources. Being on a list is a necessary but not sufficient condition for consistent project access.

Q: How do we get specified on projects early, before procurement begins?

A: Early specification requires engagement at the design stage with architects, interior designers, and specialist consultants who write the specifications for your product category. This means supplying product samples, technical data, and specification language in the formats they use, building relationships with the design community, and ensuring your product is in the specification libraries they reference when writing project specs.