As of January 2024, more than two-thirds of Carpet One, Flooring America and Flooring Canada showrooms have implemented new Retail 2.0 showrooms—the merchandising and marketing program for independent flooring retailers aimed to elevate the customer experience and shorten their buying timeline.
The showroom transformations are working, according to leaders at CCA Global Partners who shared insights at the cooperative's winter convention in Dallas, Texas.
"We're seeing higher tickets, faster close rates, and a unique shopping experience delighting our customers," said Keith Spano, president of Flooring America, Flooring Canada, International Design Guild and The Floor Trader. "The good news: our members have settled into the new normal and look: we're still up 10% over 2019, considered by many our last normal year. We're still outpacing our competitors."
The cooperative's next goal is to drive more traffic and conversions for its retail members.
"We're in the perfect place to drive unprecedented traffic to the industry beacon than is your 2.0 showrooms," Carpet One President John Gilbert told retail attendees. "More traffic and better conversion. Trade up is the single-best revenue engine to a slow retail environment."
"You've got to throw a party," noted Frank Chiera, VP of marketing and advertising at CCA Global Partners. "One of the big takeaways is that we need to get more members to advertise more. The members that are advertising more are absolutely seeing better results than members that aren't. Whether it's digital marketing or social media or organic marketing, or even traditional marketing, we need them to use the tools that are in the arsenal of assets that we have and leverage our programs."
CCA brought its marketing teams in house two years ago, and all of the employees who manage digital are Google or social media certified. "We know how to drive traffic to stores... just throttle up in '24, get moving, and drive that business forward by advertising," Chiera said.
The cooperative offers a tool, named Scope, to help retailers determine how much and where to spend ad dollars. Scope offers an amalgamation of data—including census data, member purchasing data, and sales data—to help retailers determine competition and potential in each market and what various investments in advertising across channels will get them in return.
A hyper localized, ever-evolving social media strategy is also making an impact.
"We've been working on refining the boosting strategy," said Terri Daniels, VP of public relations, social media and communications for CCA Global. "We're focusing on engagements. We're encouraging them to be local, and members are understanding that building that awareness, you've got to do the whole funnel—you need to nurture that lead."
In addition to marketing and advertising, sales growth will also come from diversification. Gilbert and Spano encouraged retailers to consider opening additional stores in their market under other CCA Global retail brands.
"Putting it simply, providing our members opportunities to sell more while leveraging existing infrastructure is a proven way to grow the bottom line while minimizing risk," Spano said. "Four different brands offering a slightly different way to extract flooring share from your existing market...There's an opportunity for most of you to be your own competition in your trading area, with the addition of an additional brand."
