For more than 10 years, Elegance Exotic Wood Flooring has been the exclusive North American marketing partner for Yihua Timber Industries, the largest wood flooring manufacturer in Asia. Housed in its new 400,000-square-foot Southern California distribution center, Elegance has worked closely with the manufacturer to create fashionable, value-priced exotic solid and engineered wood varieties.

Being able to work closely with the factory has worked well for both Elegance and its customers. “In the last year alone, we’ve introduced 14 new engineered species to meet the demand of the U.S. market,” said Lukasz Piatek, sales manager. Among those introductions are a number of authentic hand-scraped products.

“The manufacturing plant in southern China usually takes people by surprise,” Piatek said. “It has grown from the 2,000-square- foot ‘garage’ in which it started 20 years ago to a huge, 2-million-squarefoot-plus manufacturing campus with state-of-the-art equipment for drying, milling and finishing lumber. Yet, with all that high- tech equipment, some of our most popular items are crafted by hand, with hundreds of well-trained employees custom distressing the wood planks.”

Elegance is also proud to be working with a supplier that follows some of its own environmental initiatives. Both ISO 9001 and 14001 certified, the factory also has an aggressive reforestation program.

Aside from the introduction of new products over the last year, Elegance’s focus has been on long-term customer satisfaction. To meet that goal, the company maintains an extensive inventory of solid exotic and engineered species. “Our objective is same-and next-day delivery for the entire line,” Piatek said. “Once the dealer has the customer in the store and she has decided on a species, the next question is ‘When?’ We like to say, ‘now.’ In a tough economy, you have to make things as easy and convenient for the dealer as possible.”

Besides over 20 varieties of solid and engineered prefinished wood flooring, Elegance stocks a wide range of matching molding, moisture barriers and wood floor adhesive. “It is important that the dealers be able to see a measurable difference in the value we offer. Not just by the competitive pricing, but by the convenience and, most importantly, our commitment to their long-term satisfaction.”