The business environment of today continues to be challenging. We have all had to make tough decisions, work long hours, and better plan and manage our businesses.
The business environment of today continues to be challenging. We have all had to make tough decisions, work long hours, and better plan and manage our businesses. The good news is most industry experts believe the worst is behind us.
Looking ahead, we see positive signs. Consumer confidence is rising and you have told us that more consumers are beginning to shop for flooring.
Things appear to be getting better. But there’s still plenty of work ahead.
At Mohawk, we continue to invest in the business with products, brands, marketing support, technologies and training designed to help you manage through the current economic environment and provide exceptional value for your customers. Our newest merchandising display systems, such as the SmartStrand® Color Wall, are designed to capitalize on your request for better space utilization on your retail floor to improve your floor sales productivity. Our customer automation system- Mohawknet.com has been upgraded with a host of new tools and options to make it easier for you to place, search, track and process your soft and hard surface orders with Mohawk. Lastly, and most importantly, we have worked hard to make our financial services group more pro-active with you, our customer, by assisting the independent retailer with improved support in these extremely challenging market conditions.
In the product arena, our SmartStrand® carpet made with DuPont™ Sorona® continues to be the most successful carpet introduction in company history, and earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission determined that the fiber is unique enough to warrant its own sub-class: Triexta. The tremendous retail and consumer acceptance of this revolutionary, next generation carpet has driven demand to record-breaking levels. In turn, we have created profit opportunities to our dealer partners to sell an exclusive and innovative consumer solution that positively contributes to your bottom line results. Additionally, our Sensationally Soft EverStrand™ product launch is hitting retailers floors daily with the highest value variety of soft PET offerings aimed at today’s value minded consumers. Lastly, we have a Summer launch planned with our new Wear Dated Soft Touch™ collection which will debut an innovative, Mohawk exclusive product technology that creates the softest hand in nylon construction anywhere in the industry.
Our environmental initiatives launched through Mohawk Greenworks continue to get stronger. In wood, we took a leadership position by becoming the first company to obtain CARB Phase 2 certification, almost a year before the deadline, as well as the first to become FloorScore certified, thanks to PureBond® Technology, which reduces the introduction of additional formaldehyde. Our careful stewardship also means that our wood products are in compliance with the Lacey Act. We continue to be the largest recycler of plastic bottles in the industry with our EverStrand carpet, diverting over 3 billion plastic bottles a year from landfills. These efforts, and others, have received some appreciated peer recognition as well this past year. In fact, we were just recently recognized by C.A.R.E. (Carpet America Recovery Effort) for our companywide recycling efforts by earning 2009 Recycler of the Year for our Greenworks Recycling Center.
Thank you for your continuing confidence in Mohawk, and, most importantly, for your business.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lorberbaum
CEO
