Excuse me for saying this, but from where I am sitting, having been on the tools both sides of the water, also a buyer when in the design office, and for my company
And this is, a lot of you lads are all busy trying to scrat a living, that you only think about yourself, that way the merchants dictate the price to you, can I humbly suggest that you do two things
1) Get together in your areas, form a "combine" to buy for you in your name, and demand a better discount, because it will be "bulk" orders from now on in
2) Refuse to deal with any company which sells to the general public, goods which you buy in the way of trade, at about the same price as you pay for the same goods
3) If a client wants to buy the material, and at your level of discount either refuse to do the job or add back into your labour costs the trade discount that you have lost
4) All stick together, it doesn't matter who charges what in the way of hourly rate (within reason), if you form the bulk buying properly, you could I think claim any costs of it against tax, use the togetherness to warn of who is a bad payer etc
Together you will stand, alone they will pick you off one by one
