Metal Supermarkets

About Metal Supermarkets

- The barriers to entry in Metal Supermarkets are not primarily financial. You need money to support startup costs, inventory investment, fixed assets, leaseholds and trade accounts receivable. Most important is the knowledge and transfer of the business methods and systems to our franchisees. - With a track record of over 20 years we know how to assist and guide franchisees in setting-up and manage the business, creating critical preferred vendor relationships, manage inventories, develop pricing strategies, and teach, coach and guide them on how to sell and market our products and services. - Our franchisees can make solid profits while building a long term, tangible and sustainable business with limited competition.

Metal Supermarkets is the world's largest small quantity metal distributor. Our stores are small metal warehouse and distribution centers, typically 4,000 - 6,000 square feet located in a medium to light industrial setting. Our stores stock, and sell various grades, sizes and shapes of metals such as aluminum, hot and cold rolled steel, stainless steel, brass and copper in bar, tubes, channel and sheet. Our business is selling stable industrial commodities. Metal is not a fad! It has been around for 100's of years, and hasn't materially changed over time. From a product standpoint, we don't sell anything different from other suppliers - we simply sell it differently by holding and selling a broader range and selling in smaller quantities, faster, with greater flexibility and higher gross margins. This appeals to the company's core customer base- the smaller volume, non-manufacturing user. These users are typically frustrated by the fact that the metals market is volume driven, product specific and not time and service sensitive. We are the exact opposite; we are service driven, non-product specific, and not volume sensitive. The core focus of our business is not selling high volumes of metal used in manufacturing itself - that is for the major metal service center - but the maintenance and repair departments of manufacturers, distribution companies, food processors, machine shops, tool and die makers, government agencies and a wide and diverse variety of other companies and institutions as well as home owners and hobbyists. 90% of our sales are to other business, and the remaining 10% is to homeowners, hobbyists, artists, etc. This is a real B2B relationship business! One of the best things about this business is that it enjoys minimal customer and industry dependency. A typical branch has a widespread and diverse customer base which enables franchises to develop a fairly predictable revenue and profit stream due to the customer diversity. The thing that surprises most people about our business, particularly those from other industrial distribution businesses, is that our unique business model achieves retail margins. Our franchisees consistently average gross margins between 45 and 55%. Based on our most recent data, the average franchisee generates 30 invoices/day, with an average invoice size of $165, and enjoys over $550,000 per year in Gross Margin based on sales of approximately $1,200,000. A number actually exceed these averages by meaningful amounts. Customers who deal with Metal Supermarkets value and benefit from our key differentials and unique selling propositions including "cut to size" metal, fast delivery, and sourcing of non-stock and "hard to find" items, with no required minimum order size.

Ideal Candidate

Key Facts

Founded

1985

Franchising Since

1987

Model

B2B

Awards & Recognition

• ★ (2025)
• ★ (2024)
• ★ (2023)
• ★ (2022)
• ★ (2021)
• ★ (2020)
• ★ (2021)

Territory Overview