This past year has seen a significant upturn in the flooring business at the manufacturing level. Aside from several price increases, product sales have been up. Carpet still commands the majority of the floor covering market—in excess of 60%. Relative to residential carpet production, increases have been in excess of 5% and commercial carpet product increases have been hovering around 10%.

The strength of the housing market and remodeling of existing homes has continued to drive the sale of new carpet in the residential sector. In the commercial market the pent up demand for carpet, halted after 9/11, has opened like flood gates.

One of the recent challenges in the commercial market is the availability of yarn. Because of the demand, fiber supplies are be-ing taxed and it is taking longer to get orders filled. This has little to do with the oil market or the consolidation of fiber suppliers, it’s the law of supply and demand.

The hottest residential product is still broadloom but more and more of it is patterned goods. In the commercial market the hottest product is carpet tile and almost all of it is patterned goods. In fact, patterned carpet dominates commercial product lines. Almost every commercial manufacturer is getting into or has gotten into producing and selling it.

Two products generating the most claims in 2005, have been carpet and wood. Wood claims have increased significantly. The biggest reason for this is not understanding the product, how to prepare for its installation, how to install it without failure and how to cull errant boards. Other reasons include the end user and dealers not realizing it will expand and contract, it will dent when heavy objects are dropped on it and from spiked heels, dog nails and heavy items dragged across it, which will create marks. There needs to be more self-education about wood and how to avoid problems.

Carpet, on the other hand, still has some of the same problems and more of others. The problems we see most often are side-match shade variation, which is relative to continuous dyeing, and fuzzing which is due to filament slippage as a result of in-complete latex penetration and fiber lock—both are manufacturing defects. Other challenges are working with patterned goods—it takes special skills and techniques and does take longer to install.

Other insidious issues are substrate conditions which compromise or threaten to compromise installations primarily, the issue of moisture. This is critical on wood installations and commercial flooring projects.

Dealers are still letting claims get out of hand. There is not enough knowledge of the products you sell and little documentation when a claim develops which creates greater threat of consumers taking legal action.
Document everything. If you have documentation, a chronology of events of problems, samples of the installed product and a digital camera to provide photos of what the problem is, I can give you almost as much help as being there.

There are still installation issues but they can be controlled if you take the time to make the mechanics part of your team. Prevent problems by understanding the products and selling them into the right place. More dealers are doing less of this. The consumer is getting tons of information online; you have to be more knowledgeable than she is.

The big boxes are not going to take over the industry, not unless you let them. Have you seen how and where they sell floor covering? Does your store offer a little of everything as they do? Likely it doesn’t, so pay attention to running a professional operation, make the little changes necessary to stay ahead of the pack, get help in some form and continue to survive and thrive. Business is like evolution—survival of the fittest.

And lastly, China is not a threat to our industry and I don’t think it will become one. See the Commercial Flooring Report, my monthly newsletter, for details. For a free subscription, email cfreport@optonline.net.

Have a wonderful holiday season, a healthy and prosperous New Year and thank you for allowing me to share this column with you.