E-tailing’s Evolution

While still responsible for a relatively small part of flooring sales, online retail is becoming more significant. 

According to Catalina Research’s June 2016 Floor Coverings Distribution Channels Report, retailers without brick-and-mortar locations are a growing niche. Catalina Research estimated that sales of direct sellers, shop-at-home TV networks and internet retailers accounted for 6.5 percent of total floor coverings retail sales during 2016. 

“This is up from 4.3 percent a decade earlier,” reported Catalina. “The increase has primarily been by internet retailers, which Catalina estimates to have increased floor coverings sales by about 10 percent per year between 2012 and 2016.”

Wayfair’s take on total home
Offering an assortment of flooring including luxury vinyl plank, laminate, hardwood, ceramic tile, carpet tile, rugs and runners, Wayfair can furnish a home from ceiling to floor. 

“Flooring online is still in its infancy but we expect that it will continue to grow as the ecommerce players get better at selling online and the Millennial generation, that is very comfortable buying things on their phones, ages into the home renovation market,” stated Cliff Webster, category manager, flooring, at Wayfair. “With those behavioral trends in mind, we expect that the online penetration will grow above where it is today.”

Ecommerce is based on the same principles as traditional retail, starting with trust. Webster stressed, “Renovation product, and flooring specifically, gives us an opportunity to win a customer’s trust with items like hardwood and tile that are difficult to execute on. If we win a customer’s trust, when it comes time to buy the sofa, rug and throw pillows for that room, or other rooms, our customers will remember the great experience they had with Wayfair, and come back to site for those items as well.”

Online selling does have unique challenges. “As with any product that has traditionally been sold in brick-and-mortar locations, moving online means helping customers and suppliers adapt to a new medium,” Webster noted. “We work tirelessly with our suppliers to clearly merchandise our offerings so that the customer can make the most informed decision possible. We also collaborate with suppliers to solve the complex operational issues involved with a drop ship environment.”

But the ultimate challenge in selling is always the same, Webster offered, “How do we help the customer find a product they like at a good value and meet customer expectations with a clean and on-time delivery? Through our proprietary logistics network, we’re delivering on that promise and making the shopping experience easy, whether you’re just buying a new rug or renovating an entire room.”

What is Wayfair?
Wayfair, founded by Steve Conine and Niraj Shah as CSN Stores in 2002, got its current name in 2011. The operation, now the largest ecommerce destination for home furnishings and décor, started with just one single website, according to Wayfair. It now includes more than “250 standalone sites selling everything from barstools to birdhouses.”

For the 12 months that ended on Sept. 30, 2017, Wayfair generated $4.3 billion in net revenue. Wayfair now offers 8 million products from more than 10,000 suppliers across five brands: Wayfair, AllModern, Birch Lane, Joss & Main and Perigold.

INCstores LLC Focus on Floors 
[Mesa, Ariz.] FlooringInc, RubberFlooringInc, GarageFlooringInc and FoamTiles are divisions of IncStoresLLC, which started in the specialty flooring market, according to Ari Ziskin, content marketing manager, IncStores. 

First, “Our owners saw a need in the niche market of gym flooring, particularly online, and sought to become the best in that market. We understand that most people purchasing a floor are first-time buyers. Our mission is to make their shopping experience easy, accessible and enjoyable,” said Ziskin.
The company then expanded into the garage flooring market followed by soft foam flooring, achieving sustained growth in each new market. “Eventually, the next step was to take our mission and transition into the realm of home flooring,” Ziskin noted. “We wanted to create a space where customers can receive personal attention with the comfort and convenience of shopping from home.”

Offering carpet in tiles and rolls, as well as rugs, vinyl, laminates, engineered wood, bamboo and cork, and porcelain and ceramic tile, FlooringInc.com has been successful, especially in the last few years, with WPC floors, which has really taken off, Ziskin reported. “And carpet tiles continue to be a growing category for us,” she added.

The FlooringInc site is equipped with an online room calculator. “The customer can easily input the dimensions of the room they are covering and it will inform them how many cartons of materials to purchase. If their room is a unique shape, they can also send a diagram to one of our friendly sales reps, who will personally calculate the required materials for the customer,” Ziskin explained.

When it comes to installation, “FlooringInc recommends our customers use sites like Angie’s List to find a reputable installer,” she said. “However, we are working toward one day launching a flooring installation network working in tandem with high-quality installation professionals.”



FlooringInc is doing well with its waterproof vinyl products. 

BuildDirect files for creditor protection
[Vancouver, British Columbia] In November, BuildDirect.com Technologies Inc., based here, filed for creditor protection, days after Jeff Booth, founder and CEO, left the company, according to The Globe and Mail, an online publication. John Sotham, finance vice president of the 19-year-old private company, said the action was due to “failure to complete an anticipated significant equity financing in mid-October 2017,” in an affidavit filed with the Supreme Court of British Columbia as part of its filing under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA). As a result, BuildDirect is unable to meet its liabilities as they come due and requires immediate access to interim financing to remain a going concern and preserve the company’s enterprise value in the short term. The company is under CCAA protection with PricewaterhouseCoopers as monitor. The court also approved a plan for the company’s creditors to provide up to $15 million (U.S.) in interim financing.