Articles by Al Stewart

The days when laminate flooring stood its ground primarily as an economical alternative to hardwood, tile and stone are long gone. Today’s consumer is drawn to this wide-ranging product segment as a stylish and durable option. Often, shoppers are not weighing one laminate product against another as much as they are looking at how the overall category stacks up against other hard surface options. 

Asking flooring manufacturers about their commitment to the environment is like asking a proud parent to show you pictures of his kids. Only in this instance, the kids are all grown up and off recycling on their own. One of the most under-reported stories about our industry is its long-standing commitment to minimizing the impact of flooring on the environment. Mannington chairman Keith Campbell summed it up pretty well when he recently told NFT, “The ‘green’ movement has been on our radar screen since before it became a popular and politically correct thing to do.”

National Floor Trends assembled a panel of top executives in the floor covering industry and asked several questions about today’s business conditions:

• TODAY’S CLIMATE: How would you assess today’s business climate in flooring? What has been your approach to the challenges facing the industry?
  
  
• OPPORTUNITIES: What long-term and short-term opportunities do you see in thee the big surprises?
  
  
• GREEN STRATEGY: We hear so much about the green movement. Specifically, how has this translated to your day-to-day activities?
  
  
• CHANGES: What change(s) would you like to see in our industry?

What would you like to change about our industry? Installation? Marketing? Low ball pricing? Nothing? Everything? If you ask a dozen flooring folks this question you may get a dozen different answers. As part or a leadership roundtable that appears in this issue we posed the question to a number of industry V.I.P.s. It seems like an appropriate question given the tenor of the times and the softness seen in some corners of the business. Also, considering the stature of the executives who agreed to participate, I believe you will find the responses enlightening. Maybe even inspiring.

For generations resilient flooring has lived up to its name. Whether in a sheet or tile format, products included in this wide ranging category have earned a reputation as practical, fashionable and-as the name suggests-highly durable. For many homeowners and builders, resilient has long been the No. 1 choice for kitchens, bathrooms, basements and other areas where the floor could be expected to take a beating. While resilient flooring still holds sway as a dominant area of flooring, its position is being challenged as never before.

By now it’s clear that technology can be a tough sell in the flooring business. The resistance may be causing some headaches, but it also says something very positive about our industry. This is a business that thrives on human interaction at all levels. People would much rather sit down with someone knowledgeable and discuss their options over coffee than navigate through countless room scenes on a computer. Similarly, retailers and distributors, most in this business for many years, say their phone still works just fine for ordering and kibitzing. They still prefer a handshake to an instant message. This mentality is not lost on me. I am a print guy working in an increasingly digital world. Like many of you, I view technology with equal measures of enthusiasm and angst.

The headline in the local business press seemed ominous: Flooring Retailer Shuts 5 Stores, Lays Off 25.  News of this sort can be unsettling to retailers who run much smaller operations. If an eight-store flooring chain with nearly $20 million in sales is floundering, where does that leave the single-store mom and pop shop? Many specialty store retailers seeing news like this will undoubtedly take a hard look at their balance sheet. Is it time, they may ask, to cut prices, lay off staff and talk to the kids about the virtues of community college?

After all these years it seems hardwood flooring is finally getting the recognition it deserves. Increasingly, consumers are coming to fully appreciate that the benefits of wood flooring go beyond the aesthetic. Environmental concerns, long-term value and easy maintenance have all added to the appeal. At the same time, the category is being advanced by the addition of exotic species, new plank widths and glueless installation.

Diehard Red Sox fan that he is, Carpet One’s Howard Brodsky may cringe when he reads this, but his retail operation often reminds me of the N.Y. Yankees. While Carpet One most certainly does not share the Yankees’ penchant for swaggering and arrogance, the similarity is this: if the Yankees do anything less than win the World Series, their season is deemed a failure. Meetings are called. Changes are made. For Carpet One the goal is very similar. Time and again its members are reminded that the retail co-op’s ongoing mission is nothing less than complete and total domination of the flooring business. But like just about everyone else in the flooring game these days, Carpet One seems to have hit a rough spot on the schedule.

Having plunged into the flooring business with the grace of a hungry bear pawing through a picnic basket, Home Depot has quietly sounded retreat. It is abandoning its six-year-old Floor Store concept and pulling the plug on a call center set up last year to coordinate installations.  Home Depot will still sell flooring but it will no longer present itself as a specialist in the field. Appropriately enough, the news came last month on Valentine’s Day. There was no syrupy language. No hearts and flowers. They simply issued a brief news release that said getting out of the specialty store business would be “in the best interests of our customers…”