Yourfloors Fitting And Accessories Active: Be Careful Though…

Finally Yourfloors has activated the fitting and accessories part of the website. If you have a Yourfloors site then please read this very carefully before you activate the fitting and underlay.

Firstly, a screenshot of it working:

It works! However be careful for a couple of reasons.

Firstly your fitting charges need to include gripper/adhesives. They have emailed us all to remind us of that, but it’s something to bear in mind when adding your fitting prices to the site.

Also there does not appear to be any way to set a minimum fitting charge. That can be scary. Imagine selling a 2m x 2m bathroom carpet and getting the princely sum of £10 or £12 to fit it! That must be changed and I’m certain it will be. People can knock the website all they like, but it will work successfully in the years ahead, I have no doubt.

Aside from that there is a minor problem with carpet tile fitting where 4 tiles, according to Yourfloors, means 16 square metres of fitting – oops.

I do like it though. You can decide what accessories to sell and add any underlays you like, regardless of who you buy them from. There are not enough fields for door bars (only 6?!?! – you need more like 20+), whereas you can add up to 6 types of scotia (?).

You can add uplift of old, removal of furniture and door cutting (or not if you don’t do it), so it does have a lot of the bases covered (though not all, obviously). Yourfloors is very much a case of ‘swings and roundabouts’ for the retailers who have signed up. Some things will seem a bit of a headache – “oh no I have to deliver a 2m x 2m for free”, but remember you might just get a big order off the back of it, so grin and bear it!

To consumers, Yourfloors now offers a complete service and I recommend you use it. You can compare all of your local independent retailers who are specialists and have every reason to provide you with a much better and more personal service than the big shops. They will also have every chance of winning on price.

Remember, the price per square metre and the final fitted price are not the same thing! Big carpet chains will often lead with prices that appear to be lower, but the on the floor price will end up being much higher than your local retailer.

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Quickstep Parquet: New Product Launch

We’ve been invited to see the launch of some much talked about new hardwood from Quickstep next month. I’m not sure if it’s wine and cheese or Nescafe and digestives, but we can live in hope.

It looks superb from what I’ve seen so far. This is very much a pre-launch post, remember I haven’t seen it in the flesh yet, but early signs are extremely promising. As the saying now goes in the hardwood/laminate trade, it is ‘very oaky’, but then that is what sells and if it gets us out of decimating rainforests for exotic woods and being at the mercy of some very shady loggers, then it’s got to be a good thing in my book.

Quickstep are quick to point out the use of Hevea in the core of the board (it’s an engineered wood as opposed to a solid) and that one cubic metre of  wood makes 150 square metres of their product compared with solid wood making only 50 square metres from a single cubic metre.

I do think that an educated customer should be able to see the benefits of using engineered as opposed to solid wood, regardless of the ‘mug’s handful’ that a cheap solid oak gives them. Hopefully the benefits will become obvious to the customer and Quickstep are playing on the ease of installation, the eco-friendly nature of their wood and also the ‘plug and play’ nature of their product.

From a retailer’s point of view I much prefer to sell engineered wood. To put it simply, there is so much less that can go wrong. Particularly for a shop like ours that does not specialise in hardwood, engineered floors are a much better bet.

I don’t know the projected price yet, but I do hope it isn’t astronomical. I can almost hear the main men at Quickstep et al trotting out their ‘do not sell on price’ mantra, but whilst I partly agree, that does not allow for open-ended pricing without limits. It’s only worth the amount that the customer is prepared to pay for it and raising the bar will not happen overnight. Whilst sheds still pile up cheap hardwoods at £20-£25 per metre (and even less in places), the problem will persist.

Stand aside from that, elevate your product to a higher level and sell on quality emphasising its benefits – at least in an ideal world.

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Revolution Twist by Condor Carpets: New Colours Launched

Revolution has been selling very well (if we can get stock of it) for a couple of years or so now, but during that time there has been no change in the colours available.

I was glad to receive my new sampling and there are……wait for it……. a whopping THREE new colours available. I get the feeling that creativity is not a big part of life at Condor Carpets, but what they do, they do well I suppose. Good value stuff that sells fast, so who am I to moan?

The new colours are 78 ‘Platinum’ (very dark grey’, 76 ‘Steel’ (silvery grey) and 75 ‘Raffia’ (beigey fleck). The spec has not changed to my knowledge and I believe the pile weight is 26oz.

I do quite like this range and it is a good bet for landlords, those on a budget and quick makeovers. It’s way more durable than the cheap and nasty twists available and it looks way better than Condor’s other budget twist, ‘Wembley’, which does not handle or work anywhere near as well. It’s also 4 & 5 metre wide and stain-resistant.

It now has a major competitor at this price and that is ‘Balmoral Twist’ from Ideal carpets. I will write a short piece on this one in the next few days. For those of you in the trade, you might want to use this as an alternative – same sort of price, a couple of different colours and also 4m/5m widths.

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Write For The UK Flooring Blog!

If anyone out there in the world of flooring would like to write for this blog then please send me an email on ukflooringblog@yahoo.co.uk. I am happy to hear from anyone from any background and anywhere in the world.

Please understand that no payment will be forthcoming as the blog does not make a penny!

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Armstrong Popular Choice Vinyl

A parcel arrived this morning. A pleasantly logo-ed golden box containing new sample swatches of Armstrong’s relaunched ‘Popular Choice’ vinyl range. It’s branded as being ‘From the home of Rhinofloor’, which of cause it is, but many shops to erroneously claim that it is Rhinofloor. It”s not, you have to pay more money for Rhinofloor, but this range does have its plus points.

Popular Choice is broken down into three ranges: Gold, Silver and Bronze. Each range comes 2m, 3m and 4m wide and features R10 slip-resistance rating. Gold is guaranteed for 7 years, Silver and Bronze for 5 years each. Sadly I do not have the technical specs of them yet, but they do look there or thereabouts to their nearest Leolan/Domo etc competitors to the naked eye.

Ah, but what are the designs like I hear you ask. Well, I don’t think they’ve strayed too far from the norm with these. These ranges are intended to be a ‘middle of the road’ collection to cover all the popular bases. I really like one design in the Silver range, namely ‘Feinstein Metal Oxide’ which is a lovely sharp bronze shade tile – really stands out and should sell, as bronze really seems popular right now.

I’d reckon that all three ranges will go out for £12-£17 per square metre and it’s got to be pretty decent value at that price. Armstrong should do okay with them, but there is nothing different or interesting about them really – just standard vinyl fodder. Stockists will be given the usual advantage in taking rolls in I’m sure, so if you’re looking to cut a deal on these ranges as a customer, if you can find someone who actually stocks some of the ranges then you may be able to chop a few quid per metre from the price.

The samples we have received are small, but there is some logic in this as they are intended to complement Armstrong’s very nice in store stands rather than replace them. Swatches this size work well when you are out measuring for customers and you can’t exactly take a whole stand with you!

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Sensa Laminate Display Stand

Here’s a short post to show you the Sensa display stand if you haven’t made up your mind about it. Personally I would recommend having it, the footprint of the stand is pretty small at 85cms and it stands around 200cms tall by around 40cms from the wall. Four ranges, nice and compact. Anyway, here’s a photo:

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Domotex 2010: Hannover

Once again the huge flooring show has come around and once again I am not there! I’m a long way down the chain and nobody would pay my way, so I remain here in the sleet for another weekend.

I know a fair number of the Headlam head honchos are in attendance and fingers crossed that we will begin to see some innovative, bold and creative products filter through from this show.

I do have high hopes: surely the recession will motivate stronger companies to innovate and come up with products to drive our trade forward. What is is they say, necessity is the mother of invention? Something like that.

Until I hear back from those who were in attendance or get some feedback, then I’m as much in the dark as anyone else. I’d expect a good showing from Balta/Balterio and an increasing Chinese and Turkish presence will be as intriguing as ever.

I know what I want to see and that’s a lot more products around to provide the wow factor with customers. Recent products like Beach Hut, Splash and Polyflor’s wonderful collection of LVT (Luxury Vinyl Tile), Expona and Bevel Line.

Should anyone feel the need to invite me to any future trade shows then I’d be happy to accept, although my impartiality is not negotiable! Las Vegas would be nice, but I can probably live without Birmingham 😉

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Rubber Underlay Bouncing Back?

Underlay has changed remarkably in recent times. I remember the first time I saw Ball & Young’s Cloud 9 range of PU underlay, I couldn’t help but be impressed with how well it handled and how exceptionally comfortable it felt underfoot.

Cloud 9 dominated the market for several years before the competition began to grow fierce in the UK. Carpenter entered the market and made mincemeat of Cloud 9 pricewise and the quality looked to be equal to most retailers. A lot of retailers began to switch away from rubber underlays as the price of them rose steeply and the price of PU underlay fell markedly once Carpenter entered the fray with Deepstep an Richstep especially selling like hot cakes.

Very Nice PU Underlay from Carpenter

Tredaire was always the big player along with Duralay and now these two brands are under one roof via Interfloor. There is no doubt that rubber underlays have taken a serious hammering recently from PUs as price, comfort and convenience has taken its toll on the old guard.

The PU market has been a battlefield in the last 18 months or so with Ball & Young bringing out a budget range, Floorwise getting in on the act big time with their Hyper range and Carpenter expanding their range hugely. Add to this a lot of weird and not so wonderful dodgy imported junk coming in clear bags for almost a dime a dozen and you have a cluttered marketplace. We’ve stuck with Carpenter as being the best pound for pound. We don’t sell rubber underlay now at all and we aren’t alone in that.

We ditched it partly because of price, environmental concerns and also the weight of the damned things. Lugging a pallet of 100lb rolls of rubber underlay into the storeroom is no fun and fitters don’t enjoy lifting them up winding stairs on a cold and frosty January morning that’s for sure. PU also just feels way better to me and I have it in my own house.

So there you have some background – rubber fading away and PU rising and rising, but Interfloor are now seeking to stem the tide with their ‘Campaign for Real Underlay‘. Fair play to them, it’s a bold attempt and a pretty good website, but I’m just not buying it boys.

A Very Nice Rubber Underlay by Tredaire

Their claims that customers prefer it simply do not tally with my experience. If I show them to customers side by side then most of the customers who come into my shop prefer PU and by a long way too. I don’t agree that it looks or performs better pound for pound and I don’t agree that it is more environmentally friendly. Remember that this is my opinion and I am not backing it up with a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo from a bunch of scientists I have commissioned.

If I show a customer what PU I can offer them for £5 or £6 a metre and then show them what rubber I can offer them for the same price then PU wins hands down.

This post looks like an anti-rubber underlay one and I don’t deny that there are some cracking crumb or combination rubber underlays around, but unless the customer is happy to pay upwards of £7 per metre for underlay then I don’t even think of showing them rubber when their money is better spent elsewhere in my very humble opinion.

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Snow Business Like Slow Business

Probably the last thing the trade needed was a hard winter. Just as we sought to kickstart our New Year and emerge from the recent recession, the snow fell……and fell.

Our start to 2010 has been a little slow to say the least, but in fairness to all of our suppliers, no delivery has failed to show so far, which is more than can be said for Tesco who failed to deliver my shopping and promptly cancelled the entire order with 30 minutes notice!

Hopefully when/if the thaw comes, the public will emerge and the tills will begin to ring once more. One plus is that a lot of people will probably be looking to carpet over their cold and wet laminate floors now. If there’s one thing that destroys laminate quickly it’s a pair of defrosting wellies left lying overnight in the hallway.

In other news, Youfloors much vaunted promise to add fitting and underlay to our websites during December did not happen once again. I think they promised it on three separate occassions last year beginning in the Spring. Is it really so difficult to do?

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