It is Floor Covering Trade Show Season

Every year at this time floor covering manufacturers have regional and national trade shows to show new introductions and stimulate awareness of their products. Last week I attended Mohawk Industries and Shaw Industries regional show in Atlanta, Georgia (at separate locations). Neither Mohawk nor Shaw participate in the national convention (Surfaces) held in Las Vegas, Nevada. About 90-95% of the other manufacturers do. The Surfaces show is more convenient for the dealers because you have all the mills in one location. All the majors such as Beaulieu America (carpet), Quick-Step, Mannington Mills (Mannington Laminate, Mannington Hardwood, Mannington Adura, and Mannington Commercial Carpet), Anderson Hardwood, The Beaulieu Group (Berry Floor Laminate and Alloc Laminate), Nafco Luxury Vinyl Tile and many, many, more. Not only carpet manufacturers and flooring manufacturers, but related equipment producers, sundries producers, and carpet padding and laminate underlayment manufacturers. All showing their wares to about 40,000 retail floor covering dealers from across the USA as well as some international visitors.

All will offer special pricing concessions for show attendees. I always take advantage of as many of these carpet deals and flooring bargains as possible to pass on to the customers of American Carpet Wholesalers. This year will be no different except I expect to see more specials given the state of the housing market and the overall state of the economy.

This show is geared toward the residential flooring market. NEOCON is the commercial trade show held annually in Chicago, Illinois.

Buy Quick-Step Laminate Online?

Buy Quick Step Laminate floors online? Searching for Quick Step Laminate prices online is going to be harder if Unilin (Quick Step's parent, a Mohawk company) has their way. The manufacturer has increasingly been applying pressure to dealers to use minimum advertised prices. American Carpet Wholesalers is no exception. Because we are one of the top Quick-Step Laminate dealers in the country, and we value our relationship with Quick-Step, for now we have just removed our prices from the website. I say for now because there are 12-16 sites out there openly displaying less than minimum advertised prices. Why 12 or why not 16? One dealer has multiple websites with different marketing trchniques for the product and all below the minimum prices we are allowed to show. We mainatain a huge inventory(over $100,000) of Quick-Step Laminate Floors and if these sites do not comply soon, we will have no choice but to display competitive prices just to compete.

This is not to say American Carpet Wholesalers is not competitive now. What it means is that the consumer has to call us for our best pricing. Some sites are using a free shipping model to get around the pricing issue. We feel this is not consumer friendly that a customer 1000-1500 miles from the dealer would pay the same shipping cost as one say 100-200 miles away. Unless a dealer has dire need for cash flow, and wants to lose money on the sale, our prices for Quick-Step Laminate floors have consistently be some of the best to be found anywhere.

Sometimes the lowest price is not always the best. We have gone head to head with some competitors over price and won because of customer satisfaction. When the price diference is minimal, why would a customer buy from a dealer who has a consumer satisfaction of 1.5 to 2.0 when ours is usually 4.6 to 4.8 out of 5. We have worked hard to achieve this rating and feel American Carpet Wholesalers is a consumer friendly company. A little comfort of buying such a large purchase from a trusted company and recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing corporations in the country in 2007 and again in 2008.

For now we ask that our customers just pick up the phone and call us. We know convenience lies in the shopping cart and apologize openly that Quick Step Laminate cannot be ordered online at our site at this time.