By Kerri Becker
The market for buying floors is always changing. New advancements in styles, décor and installation techniques, coupled with consumers’ increasing desire for higher-end, top quality products have widened the door for manufacturers to offer more options to keep up with the latest trends. In particular, one highly durable, affordable, aesthetically appealing hardwood floor whose composition has been around centuries, yet only recently has become a modern-day competitive retail product is bamboo.

Bamboo hardwood was initially created for customers only looking to purchase an Asian-inspired contemporary product but, within the past five years, its unique, exotic exterior has become more widely accepted as a mainstream look, said Betsy Amoroso, community and public relations manager of Mannington Mills. “It takes years for consumers to accept a different kind of appearance but now it is much more sought after as well as being increasingly imported to the U.S.”

The clientele of the bamboo market has grown significantly among middle to upper class women because of its natural and curiously exotic appearance, adds Anne Knight, executive vice president and marketing director of Teragren, a manufacturer that specializes in the making of bamboo floors.

In addition, “magazines provide an excellent advertising medium for us to market bamboo to women between 40 and 60 years old,” she noted.

Another reason for bamboo’s growing popularity is its affordability. Customers are able to purchase a high-end, exotic look for a low cost. According to Philippe Erramuzpe, CEO of Natural Cork, the price of bamboo has gone down dramatically in recent years—approximately 35%—as a result of an increasing number of manufacturers offering prominent bamboo products.

“With more home centers carrying standout products, prices are lower, keeping customers happy and retail business booming,” he adds.

From a pricing standpoint, although bamboo is located at the higher end of the wood spectrum, Knight said for retailers it is a high-margin product—“ours have 35% to 40% margins of earning.”

Teragren has been in business since 1994 and since then, sales on average have gone up 30% each year, Knight said. Statistically, the bamboo flooring market grew 56% in 2005 and, this year, is expected to jump 67%, while the hardwood flooring market as a whole is anticipated to be up single digits (see related story on Page one). Thus, “bamboo is growing in popularity at a faster rate than hardwood overall.”

Because there’s no official grading system, “we must educate our retailers, who must educate their customers on where and how to buy top quality bamboo products,” Knight notes. “It’s a long train to ensure consumers purchase only the best items.”

Bamboo, in essence, is a grass cultivated throughout Asia. Its stalks are harvested about every three to eight years after maturation and processed into strips. The solid strips of bamboo are then bound together by the mill using a variety of processing methods.

At the same time, manufacturers have taken advantage of new technology to process higher-end bamboo, thus attracting higher consumer purchases. According to Erramuzpe, his standout item collection has recently expanded to include stained, handscraped, strand-woven and engineered varieties.

Most notably, his strand-woven products are created by dipping the individual bamboo strips into formaldehyde glue through a process known as carbonization. For this type of reaction to occur, a high-pressure environment is needed to bind the dried strips together for added durability. Once complete, the color of bamboo ranges in darkness, making each floor look unique.

Other developments have been in installation techniques and include nailing and floating, he adds. Bamboo can now be floated using a “locking system” that overcomes the disadvantages of its tendency to expand with moisture when dry—which previously made bamboo highly susectable to stains. In addition, the mechanical locking system can be used with or without glue, thus preventing dirt gaps from appearing.

Further, most recently a five-coat aluminum oxide finish has been added to Teragren bamboo products, making them less likely to wear, as opposed to using just a polyutherine finish, Knight said.

As a result of these new improvements in quality bamboo, according to Erramuzpe, retailers are now being forced to compete with other dealers in offering the latest items. Thus, the pricing pressure is very strong for retailers in the bamboo market.

According to Dave Peoofski, manager of Floorcraft Carpet One in San Francisco, who makes a bamboo sale approximately every two weeks, it is an increasingly competitive product among retailers, and as a high-end dealer it’s been difficult for him to maintain that upper status.

In addition, the availability of low-cost Asian imports has made it increasingly challenging for Peoofski to sustain high profit margins.

“It’s tough when there’s an import truck down the block selling bamboo for $1.99 when we want to sell a superior product for $9,” he notes. “Although we get our orders directly from the manufacturer, from a consumer standpoint, an ‘apple’s an apple’ so I lose much of my business to these imports.” Still, Peooski continues to market bamboo as an aesthetically appealing, environmentally friendly and sustainable product.

Nevertheless, retailers strive to keep pace with fulfilling a customer’s desire for an appealing, affordable and long-lasting hardwood and manufacturers agree bamboo has shined in all three respects.

According to Donna Bronat, manager of ProSource Atlanta, a wholesale business targeted to designers, her clients are attracted to its unique appearance as opposed to ordinary oak wood. “Exotics simply look great. With flooring, it’s always about the look.”