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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