Las Vegas—With the rest of the industry still recovering from Surfaces, Abbey Carpet threw its own party for its members from Feb. 4 to 6 at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino here. With more than 80% of the buying group’s 670 dealers in attendance, business owners were stocking up on inventory for the year, networking and learning how to better build profits. Because of the growth of hard surfaces in recent years, Abbey emphasized it would provide what its dealers needed in order to make their customers happy by offering a complete and comprehensive product mix. “We have introduced an offshoot of two programs previously developed with Shaw Industries and Mohawk Industries over the last two years—American Showcase with Shaw and Alexander Smith with Mohawk,” said Abbey’s president and COO, Steve Silverman. “These programs debuted in carpeting only and, at this convention, we are introducing them in hard surface.”

Each program will contain ceramic tile, hardwood and laminate flooring and “both are being well received,” said Silverman. “We notified our members prior to the convention what we were planning to do so they had ample opportunity to think about it before they got here. “The displays which include these products are private-branded for Abbey,” he explained, “and they are homogonous with the units of soft surface we already have, so everything fits in the store.” “Within a year or two,” Phil Gutierrez, Abbey’s chairman and CEO, told the members, “we want to have the entire grouping, everything we offer in the Abbey system to have private brands within our own Abbey brand, not just a private label. They will all have extended warranties and a reason that make them a better value for your customer.”

“The most encouraging thing to me is, through the research we’ve done, we’ve found that the productivity of the Abbey member compared to the non-Abbey member is two-and-a-half times greater per square foot of margin profitability,” said Silverman. “It’s an encouraging sign and a positive statement about private-branding our products, where price does not become the major issue.” Silverman also noted that Abbey’s research had shown “home centers’ [flooring] market share had remained stagnant at 13% versus specialty stores’ share at 64%, with the builder controlling 22% of the flooring market.” Abbey also added a “third tier” of products to its American Showcase soft program from Shaw at the show, and also added some new patterned and textured items from Dixie under the Portfolio brand which includes 20 DuPont Stainmaster Tactesse products.

Beaulieu of America also debuted an exclusive collection of solution-dyed Tapistron products for residential applications. Gutierrez urged the dealers to look into the products supplied by Dixie and Beaulieu as being “well priced, good values.” “The response to our solution-dyed offerings has been fantastic,” said Beaulieu’s vice president, Paul Murfin. “It seems to be a destination product at the show; dealers are coming here specifically to look for it.” When asked about the mood of the dealers with war looming in Iraq and a struggling economy, Murfin said, “most of them are interested in coming here and placing orders. Frankly, we’re so busy we don’t have time to go through the normal conversation to find out about their mood. I would say they are fairly upbeat and positive, especially about the Abbey programs, so it’s a good thing. I don’t know anyone who is excited about the economy right now but we are all optimistic.”

With consumers shopping fewer locations before making a purchase, down from 3.5 in 1980 to 1.3 in 2000, Silverman told the dealers, “the message in your advertising, on the storefront of your business and in your showroom is vital in making certain your store is the first visited when consumers are in the market for floor covering. The most effective advertising medium in reaching your customer is television.” With that, a series of new 30-second TV spots were shown to the members as they were urged to take advantage of the resources Abbey has to offer. Dealers were also introduced to two new advertising tools—“Sales Event” newspaper ad formats and a new circular and direct mail program called Abbey Direct—that could both be accessed through the group’s AMINet Web site.

Most of the vendors were happy with the show’s turnout, whether longtime Abbey partners or newcomers. “It’s our first show, having just come on board in November,” said Betsy Wolf of Happy Floors, a ceramic tile supplier. “The Abbey dealers are taking to us very well. We are happy with the response we are getting. The members seem to be very positive. I’m not seeing the economic circumstances causing any apprehension.” “This show has been great,” said Daltile’s Steve Roberts, regional sales manager. “there’s been a lot of representation from the members. They support their group well. It’s indicative of how good a program Abbey puts together for its members. Most dealers seem to be keeping busy regardless of what the economic indicators might say. Everyone we have spoken to is busy, some might be a little flat, more on the contract end, but residential still seems to be pretty strong.” “We’ve had a successful show,” said Mohawk’s national accounts manager, Bill Chandler. “The new Alexander Smith hard surface program has been very well received. We’ve been fairly crowded.

“The dealers don’t seem to be in the dumps at all,” he explained. “On the retail side, business seems to be picking up. I think they are just like everybody else; expecting that January was going to be off and that they would ride things through for the next couple months. But it hasn’t turned out to be as negative as I expected.” Piet Dossche of U.S. Floors, pleased with the reaction to the company’s modular deck squares, said, “It’s been an interesting show so far. We’ve seen a lot of interest by the dealers in seeing something new, and our product range of bamboo, cork and deck squares are getting a lot of attention.” “We’ve been real busy; it’s been good,” said Bob Botelho of flooring software developer, Textile Management Sys tems.

“The dealers are really beginning to get into business-to-business software. They are realizing that industry software is where they need to go if they want to be ahead of the game.” Dealers’ Reaction Hank Norwell of Paul’s Abbey Carpet Co. in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., said, “We had a very good 2002 so far. Our year runs from June to June. Right between the week before Christmas and the week after New Year’s Day, it was dead. Then, all of a sudden, the Monday after the New Year it went crazy again. So we’re very busy and everything seems to be going strong.” Norwell noted how impressed he was with Quick-Step’s laminate line. “It’s great. With the beveled edges, it really looks like a wood floor. We bought it.”

The laminate producer, following up on its successful Surfaces appearance, also enjoyed a fine show with Abbey, as it was consistently packed with dealers. James Mathews of Carpet Corner in Kansas City, Kan., who became an Abbey member in December, said, “We’ve been very impressed with the American Showcase as well as the Alexander Smith display. “We like a lot of the new soft products that are available, which is why we’ve taken on the American Showcase program,” he added. “We also like the Alexander Smith program because we do a lot of business with CustomWeave.” Mathews, who admits to only dabbling in hard surfaces in the past, has been getting increasingly involved with this growing segment. “Hard surface is about 8% of our total sales. But we are slowly but surely getting involved with hard surfaces. We just took on a ceramic tile line, so we’ll see how that works.”

While noting several global factors and economic issues still need to be addressed, Silverman sounded optimistic about the future. Citing the increase in existing and new home sales—6.8 million units sold in 2002 as opposed to 6.2 million in 2001—he said the “forecast for [flooring in] 2003 is more optimistic than in the recent past. “The dollar increase expected this year over last ranges from a low of 1% to a high of 7% depending on which forecast you believe,” Silverman concluded. “The 6.8 million units sold in 2002 was a record for the housing industry, and should translate into a healthy 2003.”