BlueTarp's Economic Index for the third quarter of 2016
BlueTarp Building Supply Index
X-Y axis chart showing BlueTarp customers' performance on speed and amount of spend
BlueTarp chart

This year marks the first since 2011 in which pro contractors have gotten better at paying their LBM bills on time, BlueTarp reports today. But the credit management firm also says pros on average are buying less, even as they appear more optimistic about their prospects than they did a few months ago.

BlueTarp's Building Supply Index report for 2016's third quarter includes a chart (above, at left) showing a partial improvement in the delnquency rate and a marked decline in per-customer spending so far this year. That ends pros' dramatic spending gains made at the 2,000+ suppliers nationwide for which BlueTarp provides credit management and collection services. Those suppliers collectively have more than 120,000 pro customers with accounts.

"The performance tier has improved," Scott Simpson, BlueTarp's president and CEO, told ProSales in an interview. "This year has broken a four-year trend of us every year having delinquencies higher than the previous year."

BlueTarp surveys of its customers 2Q and 3Q 2016
BlueTarp

The drop in per-customer spending comes in spite of BlueTarp survey results that found its members' customers were much more likely in the third quarter to report growing sales than similar customers did when they were surveyed in the second quarter. The percentage of pros feeling positive about the U.S. economy's health also was much higher. The survey of 154 pros was taken in September and thus reflects attitudes well before the presidential election.

BlueTarp also updated its Building Supply Index, a weighted combination of BlueTarp's proprietary spending and delinquency data plus federal data on building permits and construction spending and the Conference Board's index of consumer confidence. It's benchmarked to conditions as of April 2013.

For the third quarter, the index (shown below) stood at 124.87, just 0.1% above where it was a year earlier. The 12-month trailing average was 117.1, or 0.5% lower than the 12-month average as of the second quarter of this year.BlueTarp is based in Portland, Maine.