FLOORtalk

Doug Chadderdon, president, CEO Great Floors, a chain of 22 retail and commercial showrooms across the Pacific Northwest, talks about digital market and digital programs with supplier partners. He discusses consumer awareness of floor covering producer brands and how he balances awareness of producer brands with his store brand.

John Simonson, president, Webstream Dynamics and Five Star Store Reviews talks about two updates recently launched by Google to enhance searches. Simonson discusses BERT, an algorithm to enable the company to better understand queries and neural matching an algorithm to help under concepts. He discusses BERT in greater detail offering examples.

Scott Levy, president, Arley Wholesale, talks about the rate at which floor covering retailers are moving into ceramic, noting that retailers that have resisted ceramic in the past are adding the product based on the profit margins they can make. He also discusses the problem of finding qualified ceramic installers and shares his views on when the problem will lessen.

Chad Ogden, president & CEO industry-specific software provider QFloors, talks about the tendencies of retailers who have incorporated industry specific software into their operation to also venture into areas such as digital marketing, new methods of doing business, how they can plan to make these things happen.

Doug Chadderdon, president and CEO of Great Floors, a chain of 22 retail and commercial showrooms across the Pacific Northwest, talks about the company’s website and the traffic it draws. Chadderdon also talks about the "buy online, pick-up at store" service the company is now offering.

Michael Zmijewski, president of Mr. David’s, talks about the industry-wide installation situation, the average age of Mr. David’s installers, and the unique way the company calls on these seasoned installers to mentor younger installers, assist them in managing the jobsite as well as recruiting. Also discussed is how the company approaches recruitment.

Tom Jennings, vice president of development, World Floor Covering Association (WFCA), talks about retail salespeople and the installation knowledge level in that community. Jennings discusses the advantages to salespeople of having a working knowledge of installation in terms of helping to reduce problems and ensuring a high level of consumer satisfaction.

Scott Levy, president of Arley Wholesale, talks about the Arley’s positive performance in 2019 and the importance of having the right products, the right people, and the right customers. Levy also discusses trends in the pricing of ceramics nationwide, noting that pricing is down as a result of Spanish producers.

Stuart Hirschhorn, research director for Catalina Research, looks at sales to date in the industry and shares his outlook for the rest of 2019 sales. He notes that because of oversupply in 2018, he expects sales at the producer level this year to be no better than flat in dollar volume and off in square foot sales. At the retail level, he expects an increase of 2-3% as the result of working off inventory.

Chad Ogden, president and CEO of industry-specific software provider QFloors, talks about the various elements of QFloors software and how retailers usually adopt these elements into their operations, with the majority of retailers adopting the core features all at one time. Ogden also talks about the educational elements available to assist retailers’ proficiency.