Allied Carpets was recently bought by an offshore investment group, Sigma Capital Investments much to the relief of French owners Tapis Saint-Maclou who had been feverishly looking to offload the loss-making noose around their neck.
Of course, few of us are thriving right now in this trade, but Allied’s problems go back well before the recession bit a chunk out of the economy. It’s often difficult for us in small outlets to understand just how these huge operations continue to perform so poorly.
Walk into an Allied store, or look at their joke of a website and you will see the problem. Out of date, off the pace and appearing woefully expensive when stood next to a Carpet Right or any decent independent. That’s not to say Carpet Right are that much better, but in my opinion they are good enough to dominate what is an uncompetitive and uncreative market. To put it simply, there is no decent competition. Still Allied made an arse of it though.
I don’t know whether to hope for a stronger Allied or not. In all I think I would rather see them perish – they just don’t deserve anything else. They impose conditions on fitters that are very unpopular and their estimates always make me laugh. I think it is every small shop’s dream to have someone bring in an inflated Allied quote for them to undercut easily and still make a good profit.
There is no Allied within about 15 miles of our shop anyway, but there are a few Carpet Rights (some were former Storey’s/Walter Wall) and they certainly do make the public believe that they are the ones to go to for choice and value. Mostly we can easily beat their prices on the floor but it’s never easy to get a customer to believe you when your square metre price for the carpet is £2 higher than Carpet Right’s!
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