For those that wonder where exactly does the iFLOOR brand reach you may be surprised by the answer. Everywhere.
Here is the world view of the brand:
Here is the US map of the brand coverage:
Without going into great detail about this for competitive reasons, suffice it to say that if there is a city, with people that have computers - we are there and serving everyday through education, information and ideally through the delivery of products and services in our target markets!
The Floor Radio (aka Floor Daily) interview part 1 is posted at: http://www.floordaily.net/
PART 1
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To hear the MP3 you can go here: MP 3 Part 1
To hear the Real Player Version you can go here: REAL PLAYER PART 1
PART 2
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To hear the MP3 you can go here: MP3 Part 2
To hear the Real Player Version you can go here: REAL PLAYER PART 2
PART 3
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To hear the MP3 you can go here: MP3 Part 3
To hear the Real Player Version you can go here: Real Player Part 3
PART 4
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To hear the MP3 you can go here: MP3 Part 4
To hear the Real Player Version you can go here: Real Player Part 4
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The new iFLOOR TODAY informational handout is going to be available at all stores near you within the next 10 days or so. Additionally we are including copies of the iFLOOR TODAY brochure with all sample orders.
The brochure is really all about information on different flooring types, general information about iFLOOR services including installation and much more.
In the near future we will have a PDF you can download online as well so that you can INSTANTLY take advantage of your iFLOOR TODAY brochure.
Kudos to the very capable team that put together this very informative and helpful handout!
Here is a link for those that would like an electronic version.
IFLOOR TODAY (Apparently not Mac compliant - but works fine on a PC - Time to upgrade map.)
Hi my name is Steve and I like to listen to Floor Radio. Yes I admit it. Flooring is my passion so why wouldn't I listen to the most interactive flooring program? BUT - Rather than curb my addiction to floor radio I have decided to embrace it. And why wouldn't I continue - it feels so good. Plus I can stop at anytime.
The reason I bring it up is that recently Dave Foster called me and we did an interview about iFLOOR and what we are up to and the price fixing ruling by the supreme court from last month. It was, as always, an engaging conversation with Dave.
One of the guys I like to listen to is Jon Trivers. Usually he is both funny and insightful about the industry(even when he is wrong). :)
Recently he and Dave Foster were talking Lumber Liquidators, Floor and Decor, Empire Today and even about little 'ole iFLOOR so I thought I would paste a link to that conversation below.
To listen using REAL PLAYER: FLOOR RADIO
To listen using and MP3 Download: FLOOR RADIO MP3
(If you are specifically interested in the iFLOOR part it is about 6 minutes and 45 seconds in and lasts about 5 mins. I don't necessarily agree with everything they say - except the part about me being incredibly good looking, but I thought it is interesting the industry luminaries like Trivers and Foster know who we are.)
I am not sure when the interview that I did with Dave Foster will air, but I will keep you posted.
Bamboo is a great product for flooring and many other applications. As always I caution people from overselling any product including bamboo. A good refresher on that topic is the article, "Is Bamboo for You?".
How many of us really understand the many many ways that bamboo is now used?
Did you know you can eat bamboo? Sure most Asian cuisine includes nice little bamboo shoots in soups and they are great! For some recipes check out Wikipedia.:
Did you know you can wear bamboo? Spinning bamboo yarn is now a standard type of apparel. Check out bamboo clothes!
Bamboo building materials are everywhere, bamboo fencing, bamboo panels, bamboo floors, bamboo decking, bamboo blinds and bamboo rug! It's everywhere.
Bamboo is used to make musical instruments like flutes, pipes and even saxophones!
Of course you can make bamboo furniture, fishing poles, kites, bird cages, plywood and even bamboo boats.
A truly flexible material by any standard! (Here are some more uses: JMBAMBOO.)
Today I was looking through inventory and noticed that we have about 1000 cartons of 6' bamboo in the woodstock 6' ampu series.
A great looking material and instock status for those lucky customers that are able to act quickly.
At less than $4.00 per foot this material is definitely not going to last long. We have seen so many selling lower grade material while still calling it "Premium", but unless you know what you are looking for claims like this are usually not 100% accurate.
Good luck to those who are able to take advantage of this short term opportunity.
A recent story about Hurricane Katrina and the temporary trailers that folks are living in has a story about the negative health impact of formaldehyde.
I found it distressing and worth passing along to everyone who follows this BLOG (I think the audience is basically me and my mom. Thanks mom!).
My point with this post is to reinforce that Formaldehyde is a carcinogen and therefore minimizing it in our building products should be something we all spend time on. My point is not specifically related to Hurricane Katrina or the craptacular response to it. That is for politicians to sort out. We spend alot of our energy to make sure that we manage the products we carry even when it costs us short term sales.
(Sidenote: New Orleans Residents - we are sending out over 400,000 flyers to you in August to help you gain access to lots of flooring at low prices. We know that it is hard to find adequate and reasonably priced construction suppliers at the moment down there.)
If your dishwasher or ice maker fails all at once or generates a small leak over a period of time, you should expect it to damage just about any flooring and sub floor combination possible. (tile and concrete may be a safer combo, but long term water exposure can still damage that too!)
I just wanted to add this quick note that in fact your flooring is not designed to stand up to these types of losses. It is in fact a homeowner insurance claim that is the most common remedy for these situations. So if you have a leak or a one time major water problem don't forget to call your insurance company rather than lament the quality of your flooring. They can help get you back to where you started.
I hope this proves helpful for homeowners who have encountered this situation.
I recently purchased about 1200 sq. ft. of flooring from your location Utica, MI. I work in computers so I do all my research online. I found a few places that had comparable prices online, all of which were better than store prices, but was concerned about not being able to see and touch the product. When I found that you had a store location not far from me I decided to visit the store.
Matthew was the person that assisted us. The sales experience was very positive. There was no pressure and he let us check out and even walk on all of the flooring we had interest in. He also managed to entertain our son while we were looking at floor.
Another associate loaded our vehicles with the flooring and we were on our way. Not all the flooring was available in the store so we took what was there and the rest was ordered. The remaining portion came in ahead of schedule and my pickup was very smooth just as the original sale.
The floors are installed and look great. I would send pictures but there is still paper down because contractors are still working on the house. Once it was installed I found that we had about ten boxes left over. I put them in the truck and brought them back to the store. Matt was on the phone, so I talked to another associate (sorry – I forget his name). He was very helpful, and quickly found my order, processed a credit, and helped unload the boxes.
I believe that pricing in your business is very competitive, and thus one can always find “a better” deal somewhere. However, for me customer service is priceless and the guys you have working at this location seem to understand that. I will be a repeat customer.
KT
P.S. I run a customer service/tech support department for a living.
Hi KT,
First of all let me thank you for your business. We do appreciate it!
Additionally please accept my deepest gratitude for giving this kind gift of feedback. We certainly agree that Matt and the whole iFLOOR Utica team are putting their name on your experience. When we say “we put our name on it” it really is to describe that we each take personal responsibility for any interaction we have with our customers and ultimately hope share in the success of your project.
We are excited to see your photos and appreciate your time in sending those to us when you are finally done with your construction. So many people(competitors) believe that the flooring is just a commodity, but we believe if you tie together GREAT products with Passionate and caring people you can change the world!
Customer service is easy to say, but hard to do sometimes. Since you are a customer service professional yourself your comments are that much more valuable.
Spread the word… iFLOOR rocks Detroit!
With Sincere Gratitude,
Ss
Steve Simonson
CEO
iFLOOR
Kevin in Houston mentioned the following article about iFLOOR that I hadn't noticed. Good find Kevin and insightful comments by Frank O'Neill. http://www.floordaily.net/focus_article.aspx?article=10529
The story talks a bit about how the competitive landscape is changing for flooring retailers and how the concept of clicks and bricks is continuing to evolve.
Another story I recall recently ran in Retail Traffic magazine talking about the clicks to bricks moves of some online retailers. http://retailtrafficmag.com/mag/retail_clicks_bricks/
It certainly it interesting to continue to watch our dynamic business change.
One thing is certain, customers vote with their checkbook on who is the best provider for their purchase so we must continue to get better at listening to their needs!
As I mentioned earlier this year we attended the International Builders show as we always do. It was a great event and we had some great coverage from DIY network, HGTV and several other major media areas.
Great job by Rick Wells on this quick clip from HGTV talking about cork and bamboo. Fast, yet great information! Authentic cork from Portugal is the real deal. DON'T GET FOOLED BY IMITATION CORK FROM CHINA. IT IS NOT THE SAME! I have dealt in both and can tell the premium stuff from the knock offs.
Not only is our e-commerce business continuing to gain strength the rollout of our local Internet Pick Up Points (iPUPs) continues to roll on.
The hardwork by the real estate and store development teams continues to produce excellent results. A number of new stores have rolled out over the last several weeks. I heard a number of something like 6 stores in the last 7 weeks! Whatever the hard count is the pace of openings is impressive, but the quality of the openings is even more impressive. Great people, great products and great customers. That is what it is all about.
Given the state of the real estate market we feel fortunate to be able to continue to expand and serve our customers needs while other dealers are folding up their tents and going home.
Thanks to our customers who make it all possible!
I was referred to a great sales book called "The Little Red Book of Selling" a couple years back by a great guy and I wanted to pass this tip along to other out there who may be reading this blog.
Selling is something that is about finding a need and filling that need in exchange for some kind of compensation. As Zig Ziglar says it all begins with a sale!
It is too bad that is some circles selling in general or calling someone a salesperson has a negative connotation with it. I mean nobody wants to be "sold down the river" or "sold a bill of goods."
The key for me is that truthful selling or better said, consultative selling is for me a true win win. The buyer gets to tap into my resources or experience and obtain good and services in exchange for some level of compensation that I use to feed my kids. No matter how you slice that - my kind of selling is something that anyone can and should be proud of.
http://www.gitomer.com/ is a website dedicated to helping folks make the sale. It is a no nonsense way of getting it right and getting to the fundamentals of selling. DEFINE THE NEED - FILL THE NEED - FEED YOUR KIDS.
Gitomer's "Little Red Book of Selling" along with Tom Hopkin's book "Selling for Dummies" have been on my bookshelf for years. And yes, I routinely consult them when I want to get back to basics. I also have Zig Ziglar CD's that I listen to regularly to keep me focused on the basics.
Anyway there are so many great resources out there I wanted to share my experiences with those I have had the most success with.
I was feeling guilty about not posting over the last week or so, but I was driving through Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Bighorn Recreation area in Wyoming, Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota, and more... It was a lot of driving, but we stopped along the way for hikes and notable spots to see. Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore were both excellent as was the Crazy Horse area. Reptile gardens, cosmos, the caves, bear coutry and all of hte I liked the geyser area of Yellow stone the best.
Service is something that we really have passion for. There are so many people in the iFLOOR organization that spend their professional career advancing the cause of customer service. They invest their time and expertise into engineering new processes, computer programs, systems, products, services, fulfillment, etc... etc...
I have so much respect and gratitude for all of these fine folks and their sincere efforts. Thanks to each of them. (btw - we are not perfect, but we strive to be!)
Kudos to Ginny and the Sacramento team that were featured in a recent newsletter from a great customer in the Sacramento area. First of all thanks to the fine customer for the business. We appreciate your trust and confidence. And extra thanks for taking the time to spread the good word about iFLOOR and others in your "honor role". We appreciate it! KUDOs to you - i have a ton of admiration for your concept.
Here is an excerpt from that newsletter:
We have finally seen a bunch of our cork hit the port and is now in stock. That is great news for customers that may have been waiting.
More cork will be hitting over the next couple weeks and that is exciting for everyone! Much of this was the shipments Ryan and I reviewed when we traveled to the EU back in June.
All of this cork is 100% made in Portugal up to the highest standards and with the UNICLIC patented click system. The cheap knock offs that really do not have the environmental story are nothing close to this great stuff. (btw - we have seen a company online selling a Eastern European targeted product as first quality goods made in the EU, but it is not the same stuff at the same price therefore it is not the end of the story. It is thinner product, less dense and has a different set of components (filler, glue, etc...) that make it substandard for the North American market. The company purchased the product from Germany through a grey market connection, but we believe that it is important that only AUTHENTIC premium products get sold as first quality goods.
As always buyer beware!
Discounting may soon disappear online and offline! Recently the Supreme Court overturned a nearly 100 year old rule that prohibited price fixing by manufacturers (also known as setting a minimum price a product can be sold for in a retail store). In reality to a certain extent price fixing was happening anyway.
If you try to buy Bose Quiet Comfort headphones, Microsoft Windows or an Apple iPod or for that matter a new iPhone you will find uniform prices everywhere. (btw- iPod, iPhone, iMac, iTunes --- see how cool our iFLOOR brand is?)
Until this recent decision a retailer of flooring or any other product could generally set the prices they advertise at or sell for on their own for their own store. The basic premise is that as companies are more competitive they can offer a lower price and that price competition is good for the consumer and ultimately good for businesses as well because it forces efficiencies.
The new Supreme Court decision now has a different take on that concept. Basically unless there is a risk of monopoly a manufacturer has the right to set the retail price of each of its products. If a retailer fails to adhere to the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) then the manufacturer can stop selling to them and enforce that rule through the distribution chain without fear of a price fixing anti-trust litigation as before.
This theory is that when a brand invests heavily into their name to have a premium brand they should be able to sell it at a premium price AND not have discounting associated with the product in anyway. Think about it in the context of Gucci or Nike or Louis Vuitton – all of whom would freak out if someone tried to discount the products because of the premium positioning.
What does this mean to you? Well in the future (I suspect the near future) most manufacturers will arrive at a MSRP for their product that iFLOOR and every other retailer including Carpet One, Abbey, Prosource, Carpets of Dalton, Becklers and EVERYONE else will be forced to maintain.
There will be no variance on prices whatsoever. Short term this will hurt consumers because the prices that you can buy at today are going to go up. This increase will be felt especially by those that have had the opportunity to work with iFLOOR prices in the past.
You may be asking yourself, “Won’t this cause massive price increases and inflation?” Part of the court’s logic is that a manufacturer would not be wise to raise their price too high if they have competition in the market from other companies. For example Bruce hardwood is not likely to go up too high if it is worried about Columbia hardwood’s market position. BR111 is not likely to set their prices too high if they are concerned about Award or Westhollow offering competing products at a lower price.
The good news is that companies that are value added in the buying process will benefit in the long run and so will their customers. The consumers will benefit because there will be less price confusion in the market and allow an end user to buy at the place they feel like adds the most value to the job. What is a value add? Well some things that iFLOOR has offered for years would be considered value adds like:
· Expert advice about the job on a one to one basis. Many Internet companies just want you to place an order online and encourage you not to try to call them. iFLOOR offers live chat, telephone service 24 hours per day as well as store locations.
· Sample support through iFLOOR stores and direct sample shipments.
· Post Sale Service has always been something we have invested heavily in. iFLOOR has dozens of people that handle post sales questions and pro-active tracking of orders.
· iFLOOR’s financing offers are very aggressive to help you get the job done right now, but pay later.
· iFLOOR offers installation in most major cities and surrounding communities. This is a HUGE value add and NO other Internet company can offer that. This is a challenge, but we believe continued investment in this area is good for our customers.
· IFLOOR has dozens of locations in the United States that can offer in person service as well. This is another value add that Dalton brokers and Internet low price sellers can’t compete with.
The basic summary that I believe is that the court has thoroughly considered this nearly 100 year old law in light of the present day situation consumers face. The awareness of general competition and in particular global competition will keep brands sensitive to price is part of the equation. I should mention that my own awareness that this is now the law of the land gives me additional perspective on this matter. Companies who offer brands who have a set MSRP will have a higher margin and therefore a more profitable contribution to continue to add additional services that should benefit consumers directly.
There is a part of me that is all too aware (and sad) that discounting – particularly on the Internet will be hit very hard. This could impact prices not just of flooring, but prices of cars, books, DVDs, TV’s, furniture, MP3’s, jewelry, camera’s, tools, apparel, GAS, tires and basically anything sold that is a recognized brand. EBAY, Amazon, Overstock and other discounters could be devastated by this new rule depending on how the manufacturers decide to adapt to this ruling. iFLOOR is uniquely positioned to benefit from this ruling as a large value added player in the flooring market. Other companies that just "pirate" sales away from companies like iFLOOR based on a promise of a lower price who do not have a value add to the buying process will likely disappear.
So the days of scouting for a deal may be coming to an end. However, this negative is offset by the understanding that competition will keep pushing manufacturers to be realistic about what prices to set and that fundamentally consumers will receive a higher level of service from companies that invest in a value added buying experience.
Here are some news references to the story:
Supreme Court lets manufacturers set minimum prices
Supreme Court Reconsiders Price Fixing
After some more travel I am back in the saddle again.
I should be back to daily postings by tomorrow.
Laminate flooring has really been in the United States and Canada for about 11 years, but what a ride it has had.
Pergo was first introduced through Colortile roughly in 1996 and shortly after that mainline retailers began to carry the line. Around 1997-1998 the laminate category really picked up steam when companies that traditionally made counter top laminate like Formica, Wilsonart, Pickering and other flooring companies like Mannington, Armstrong, Mohawk and others began to market laminate flooring in a big way.
Today there are a number of changes. Many companies have left the laminate flooring business like Pickering and Formica both of whom terminated the flooring business after an initial great period of business followed by years of hypercompetition.
Today there are lots of names some familiar and some not. Pergo remains an important brand and Shaw and Armstrong both have nice shares in the market and seem to be growing. Other brands like Wilsonart, Mannington, Alloc and BHK struggle to find a place in the market. Newer brands like Quickstep (now owned by Mohawk) and Westhollow have emerged as leaders in various parts of the market developing unique looks and styles that are really popular. Formica has been reborn as a licensed name to Krono-tex which is a good move to capitalize on the strength of the Formica brand name.
The flood of Chinese imports have slowed recently since Unilin was sold to Mohawk which enable them to use the ITC to stop any non-licensed clicks from being imported. However, I have noted recently that cheap imports especially some of those being sold online are being marketed using improper specification claims. They claim E1 - when the core is E2 or higher. (this means there is too much formaldehyde in the core). They claim AC4 wear rating which would be capable of commercial level wear resistance and upon actual testing the product didn't pass AC1. With or without a license this is perhaps one of the most critical areas where the buyer must beware!
Lots of things happening in the laminate flooring market. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of!
The other day I had a reporter ask me who were some of the companies that I believe are making some good progress in the sustainability movement. In other words, are folks just using GREEN in their marketing slogans or are they living it?
Firstly I thought that it was a very astute question from the WSJ reporter and it caused me to think on my feet. So my comments were anything but scientific.
However there were a few names that really stood out to me. First Interface flooring has a HISTORY of environmental awareness and they are the company that I respect the most. They had lead in a category that didn't exist 10 years ago. True vision.
I also mentioned Shaw and Mohawk because I believe their recycling initiatives have been so well thought out and really built to be long term programs it is clear they are not just jumping on a bandwagon. They are doing it because it serves the bottom line, which is a happy thing because it also leaves the planet in better shape than when we found it.
There were a couple other smaller companies that have made some noise in the space, but the level of accomplishment and investment pails when compared to the 3 companies I mentioned above.
For those who have concrete floors I would highly recommend considering a floating floor.
I think floating floors offer great flexibility and i think they are now widely available in hardwood, laminate flooring, cork floors, linoleum even tile floors and recently even VINYL floors.
This is a great open for residential and commercial applications, although there are still some times that a glue down application may be optimal. Consult your iFLOOR expert for information about your jobsite.
