The Combined Building Supplies (Co-op) is a New Zealand based builders’ co-operative (with an Australian subsidiary) that leverages collective buying power to deliver better pricing and supplier partnerships for independent builders and tradies.
A lot of people who’ve heard of Combined Building Supplies (CBS), or who are already members, don’t fully understand what CBS does and how it can help its members. They know they’re getting good pricing. They know there’s something about a rebate at the end of the year. But beyond that, it can be a bit vague – that’s why we have put together this handy guide to actually understanding how CBS actually works and who we are!
What It Actually Means To Be A Member, Not A Customer
Let’s start with the thing that sets CBS apart; you don’t just join, you are part of an industry-led organisation that exists specifically to serve member businesses. CBS is a builders’ and tradie co-operative. That means the organisation operates for the benefit of its members, it’s not for outside investors, not for a parent company, not for a board answerable to anyone other than the people on the tools.
In a conventional model, there’s usually always a company at the top. That company negotiates deals with supplier partners, takes a cut, and passes the rest down. The company’s job is to grow its own revenue. Your interests and the company’s interests might align, but they also might not. When they don’t, the company usually wins.
In the NZ CBS co-operative, there are no outside investors to answer to. The members are the organisation. Every decision CBS makes (which supplier partners to negotiate with, which deals to prioritise, how value is distributed) is made in the interest of the membership. Not a boardroom somewhere else.
CBS Chairman Carl Taylor describes it simply: “Think Farmlands, but for tradies. Farmlands is farmer-owned. CBS is tradie-owned.”
The model is proven, the logic is the same, bringing together the collective buying power of independent builders and tradies, so each member business gets access to pricing that was previously only available to large construction companies.
This matters when things get hard. When a supplier partner pushes back on pricing, CBS negotiates from a position of collective strength, not on behalf of a profit margin. When a new deal is struck, the benefit flows to members.
How CBS Co-Op Negotiates Supplier Partnerships In NZ
The pricing member businesses’ access doesn’t appear by accident. It’s the result of deliberate, ongoing negotiation, and the leverage behind those negotiations is the collective buying power of the membership. Here’s the straightforward version of how it works.
An individual builder spending $200,000 a year on building materials is a decent account. A supplier partner will give them a reasonable trade account and maybe a modest discount. But that spend level won’t move the needle for a major national supplier. They’ll be polite, but they won’t be sharpening pricing.
Now put that builder in a co-operative with over 2000 member businesses with combined spend that makes CBS up there with some of the largest purchasers of building materials in New Zealand. At that volume, supplier partners are having a very different conversation. Suddenly, they’re competing to be part of the CBS network, rather than the other way around.
That’s the core of what CBS does, it aggregates the collective buying power of independent builders and tradies and uses it to unlock pricing that individual operators could never access on their own.
But the process goes further than showing up with big numbers. CBS actively manages supplier partnerships, assessing which partners offer genuine value, negotiating pricing agreements, and regularly reviewing deals to make sure member businesses are still getting a competitive rate. Supplier partners in the CBS network aren’t just handed a contract and left alone. There’s an ongoing relationship, with accountability on both sides.
The result is significant discounts across more than 30 national supplier partners in NZ, covering everything from framing and trusses to appliances, plumbing, flooring, electrical supplies, fuel, and health and safety tools. For the current full list of NZ supplier partners and available pricing, visit the NZ CBS supplier’s page.
Importantly, you don’t usually have to change where you already shop. In many cases, CBS links your existing accounts to the negotiated pricing. The discount applies. You keep the supplier relationships you’ve built; you just pay less.
How The CBS Rebate Works In New Zealand
The CBS rebate is often the thing people have heard about but aren’t quite sure how to explain. Here’s a plain-English version. CBS in New Zealand is a tradie co-operative, which means it doesn’t exist to extract profit from its members, it exists to serve them. At the end of each financial year, when CBS tallies the collective spend across the membership and the value generated through supplier partnerships, the appropriate (if any) surplus is returned to its qualifying shareholder members, as determined by the board.
The CBS Co-op rebate (New Zealand only) is a structural feature of the co-operative model, it exists because the organisation’s obligation is to its members, not to accumulate capital for outside investors.
One CBS member put it plainly: “The rebate at the end of the year is a real bonus. These guys work really hard on our behalf to get the best price possible.”
Why The Co-Op Model Works For NZ Businesses
Co-operatives have endured for over 150 years across industries as different as banking, farming, and retail. The model works because the incentives are aligned.
In a privately owned organisation, the company needs to grow its margin to satisfy investors. That pressure doesn’t always pull in the same direction as member interests. In a co-operative, growth is in everyone’s interest, more member businesses means more collective buying power, which means better deals, which means more value for every existing member.
CBS currently has over 2000 members and is growing. As that number increases, so does negotiating strength with supplier partners. Arrangements that aren’t possible today become even more possible as membership grows. Supplier categories not yet in the CBS network become worth adding. The value of membership scales with the size of the collective.
This is what CBS means by levelling the playing field. A large construction company has always had access to volume pricing. An independent builder with two or three crews hasn’t – until now. CBS exists to close that gap, and the NZ co-operative structure is the right vehicle to do it, because the people it’s designed to help are the people the organisation answers to.
Is Combined Building Suplies Right For Your NZ Business?
CBS accepts member businesses across a wide range of trades, including builders, electricians, plumbers, painters, landscape gardeners, property developers, landlords, and more. There’s no minimum spend threshold to join.
Members who get the most from CBS are those who actively route their purchasing through the supplier partner network, pay attention to new deals as they come through, and over time see the cumulative effect, both in day-to-day savings and through the annual rebate.
If you’ve been absorbing the cost of not having volume pricing because you’re operating independently, that’s exactly the problem CBS was built to address.
Entry is a one-off joining fee. After that, no annual fees. You keep your existing accounts. You access the pricing. And at the end of the year, you receive your portion of the value back. That’s what being part of a builders’ and tradie co-operative actually looks like!
Want to find out if CBS membership is right for your business? Get in touch with the team at Combined Building Supplies today!
Disclaimer: All information provided in this post is intended as a general guide only for New Zealand based businesses, always contact the Combined Building Supplies team in person for more up to date and specific information relating to your individual business membership and co-op benefits.