Hicksville, N.Y.—When it comes to credit use in the floor covering industry, many believe it is a selling tool dealers have not taken advantage of nearly enough. And when the competition for the discretionary dollar includes electronics, appliances and other various types of technology-driven gadgets, the flooring retailer needs every advantage he can get to build traffic for his business while offering the consumer the home of her dreams as conveniently as possible.

As we head deeper into 2006, industry executives are finally beginning to see, slowly but surely, more flooring dealers getting involved with consumer financing.

“We want to be the largest private label consumer credit program in the industry,” said John Bradshaw, marketing manager, Shaw Flooring Alliance (SFA). “We are certainly not there yet, but we really feel like consumer credit, in general, is a great sales tool that is used in many other retailing industries. We really feel like we need to be on the cutting edge of that.”

One way Bradshaw feels SFA is on the “cutting edge” of consumer credit is by offering SFA dealers offers they just can’t pass up. A recent credit/incentive promotion for SFA retailers which performed strongly during the prime fall selling months, “Kathy Ireland Fall Flooring Days,” a popular program in its second year, offered members a six-month, same-as-cash buydown and a 15-month, same-as-cash buydown during the promotional period from Sept. 2 through Oct. 17. By offering its customers the attractive credit terms, retailers reported strong sales.

“Flooring retailers are looking more at consumer financing more than they ever have before,” he said. “At our winter regional events, we found, for the most part, dealers were really excited about talking about this program for the first time than, quite frankly, I can remember. There was more dealer interest than ever before. There are still, unfortunately, some accounts that still don’t offer private label consumer financing. They’ll offer Visa or MasterCard, but, and this is something that we continue to talk about with dealers, but I think the interest is gaining.

“Obviously, the larger accounts are using it,” Bradshaw explained. “I think we are starting to move down to the middle and lower end of our industry. And there is interest. They want to understand it more than they ever have before.

“The biggest issue we talk about to dealers is,” he noted, “the ability to be competitive. We tell them, ‘Look when they buy furniture, when they buy appliances, when they buy any other larger ticket household item.’ Some are stuck doing things the way they did 10 years ago, but I’ve been very encouraged. We continue to have this as a major initiative for us. We continue to push consumer credit using, I believe, the biggest and strongest promotional calendar that is available to a dealer base. And we try to use our rates whenever we can.

“What I try to share with the dealer more often than not is,” said Bradshaw, “‘Look, you might know that it’s the reason why they are leaving your store and going to buy somewhere else, but I promise you, a portion of the marketplace today, in order to buy, and they are buying, they are going somewhere else to find it.’ I say it in a nice way, of course. Most of the accounts that don’t offer credit now just don’t believe that it is going to help them. But again, going back to our dealer meetings back in January, there were a couple shows that we ran out of applications. This is greatly encouraging from where we were in the past. And hopefully, this will continue.”
—Louis Iannaco