Have you seen the program Mary Portas did as a secret shopper on Channel 4. She was looking at how Sofa’s are sold by the big furniture companies in the UK like Harveys, Furniture Village, DFS and CSL Sofas. The key problems she identified with the ways these companies sold sofas were:

• The Price promises were meaningless
• The Sales did not seem genuine
• Customers being sold unsuitable products, for example too big, the wrong colour or the wrong style.

She was focusing on the Sofa retailers, however similar bad retailing practices exist in the flooring industry. For example:

• “FREE” Fitting – Do you know anybody who works for FREE? What every customer knows is what this really means is “Fitting included in the price” or “Fitting costs hidden in my overpriced underlay or accessories”. At Stewart Groom Flooring we never say the fitting is FREE, in fact we think it is an insult to our floorlayers who have trained and have a professional skill to say we are giving this away for nothing. Instead we quote for a complete job and leave our customers to judge if it is good value for money
• Phoney Discounts – The large carpet and laminate retailers use the same sorts of Sales promotions as the large sofa and furniture retailers. I have just been onto the website of a large retailer and the headline sale at the moment reads “Carpet Madness Up to 50% off* and the 20% Selected Carpets”. Eventually I found the small print associated with the star to be RRP, presumably Recommend Retail Price. This is a bit like the “price promise” that the sofa people were making. In the program they were promising that their sofas could not be found anywhere else cheaper. What they really should have said is that their sofas were manufactured for their company and you cannot find them anywhere else. What you should know is that there are very few carpet manufacturers that give a Recommended Retail Price and that often the Recommended Retail Price shown in the shops and websites is set by the retailer. Luckily customers are not stupid and realise that these are not real discounts.
• Sales Staff not asking the right questions – Just like the sofa salesman in the furniture shops, the sales staff in a flooring retailers should be asking questions about your lifestyle and the rooms you want new flooring in, to ensure that you buy the right product. A new floor will make a dramatic change to the look and feel of your home and just like a sofa you have to live with it for a long time so it is a decision that you should take your time over.We always recommend that customers never buy flooring without seeing all the samples at home to see how it fits with their decor and lifestyle. We also suggest they find out not only the headline price for the flooring / carpets but also find out what the cost for a complete job will be. They should find out the costs for fitting, moving furniture (some companies won’t do this at all), easing doors (again some companies just take the doors off and leave you with the problem) and any accessories like underlay, gripper and doorbars.If you are thinking about buying a new carpet, wood or laminate floor and want to make sure your retailer is helping you find the right product why not request our flooring checklist. This gives information on the things you should be considering when choosing a new floor.For anyone looking for a new carpet, wood, laminate or vinyl floor look for a local company that will happily come to your home or office and discuss your flooring needs. A good flooring retailer is big or small wants customers to like them so much they keep coming back for more, or they recommend you to their family and friends. As any marketing guru will tell you it is much easier to do business with an existing customer that cultivate a new customer. This seems to be something that large retailers seem to have forgotten.