subject: The North American Wood Products Market - A Resource For Selling Into The Hardwood, Softwood, Osb, [print this page] The purpose of this report is to present Corporate Development Associates findings and analysis about the North American Wood Products market, including softwood lumber, oriented strand board (OSB), composite decking and railing, plywood and hardwood lumber. This report is designed to assist clients in marketing products and services to this business by understanding the structure and key participants, as well as past trends and future projections. It also serves as means to learn about key competitors with this business. To a layman the term lumber is somewhat misleading. Each of the aforementioned sectors have separate government classifications, are treated as discreet markets by industry experts, and have their own trade journals and trade associations. For example in interviewing softwood lumber experts and personnel, learned that they had very limited knowledge of other market segments such as hardwood lumber, OSB or plywood.
This proved to be the case with all segments of the business. It determined that in order to provide vendors a full understanding of this market, we had to weave together all these divergent components into a single business which we characterize as the wood products market.
In order to accurately analyze this market, to gauge its full size and to provide a comprehensive assessment of the opportunities for potential vendors, it determined that the Canadian market, especially in terms of production, should be combined with the US. Indeed, many of the leading wood companies are Canadian owned companies who own sawmills and wood production operations on both sides of the border. Conversely, many US owned companies have Canadian operations.
This methodology required an analysis of each of the aforementioned subsegments and an amalgamation into a single marketing opportunity
