floorsforflorida
A blog about Flooring in Florida, (apparently from an anxiously alliterating author…)
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tired of being Badgered?
April 13, 2012
This is a video compilation of commercials that ran in Durham NC that speaks exactly to what I’ve been talking about in my posts- plus they are Hilarious. enjoy and share
But Madam! Our products are better….because they are Exclusive!
April 2, 2012
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I know, I know – Finally! The flooring guy has put up a new blog post; I’m sure all 12 of you were waiting with bated breath.
This is going to be my last post for a time on how you are getting scammed – it’s frankly a little depressing. Kinda like watching those nature shows about killer whales. Seriously how many adorable little penguins do we need to watch get eaten? Alright, we get it! You would think after millions of years of evolution the penguins would have come up with something better than being flightless and delicious….but I digress.
Today I want to talk about one of the new kid on the block in terms of flooring scams, the PRIVATE LABEL scam. A majority of flooring stores use this racket, and there are a couple of big national chains that have based their entire business model on it. Here’s how it works – a vast majority of flooring (especially carpet) is supplied from just a few key manufacturing conglomerates like Shaw, Mohawk, Armstrong, etc. A long while back the Home centers decided they wanted to get into thew flooring business. They very quickly learned that they could not compete apples to apples with retail dealers on the street. This irritated them. They went to the few key manufacturers and insisted that they “re-label” their flooring with names exclusive to them. Problem solved, happy days – they get to tell their customers they carry exclusive lines, and the outside dealers couldn’t undercut them.
The fact of the matter was the smarter dealers could still compete – they just had to identify what the product actually was and give the customer a better price, which wasn’t hard. If the situation had just settled into this scenario, private labeling wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. As it is with most things, well enough was not left alone, the sleeping dog was not allowed to lie, and…-well that’s all I can come up with. Somebody somewhere asked the fateful question “Hey! do we have to call that junk over there “Blowout special- no returns or exchanges”? What if we put it in a fancier box and call it “The Penthouse Collection”?
Let’s face it, there are a ton of retailers out there who are utilizing the private label as a selling tool to hide what it is they are actually selling you – inferior products. I don’t even need to go into so much detail here, because I don’t want to insult you with the common sense of it. Just do me a favor – when shopping for flooring be sure to ask one simple question: “Where can I go on the internet to research this product you are selling?…Besides your own website that is…”
If you can’t Google the name of the floor and come up with a bunch of different companies carrying it, How do you know what you are getting?
If the manufacturer of the product isn’t a large, nationally recognized name, How will you know the floor will perform? Who will you turn to in a warranty claim? The retailer? Okay fine – Google them, but put the word “Complaints” after their name….
#2 The Bait and Switch
November 25, 2011
Okay, now we’re going to talk about the grand dad of all marketing scams, the good old Bait and Switch. Frankly I can’t believe in this day and age that this tired scam is still being used- I mean how many times will Charlie Brown try and kick that football that Lucy is holding before he finally gives up and punches her one…or at least goes and buys a kicking tee for cripes sake.
As a flooring retailer this one really irritates. We don’t do any of this crap, but we have to deal with the customer that comes in our stores with a giant chip on their shoulder because of it.
“Good morning Ma’am, welcome to the Car-”"yeah, morning, I’m just going to look around, is that OKAY!?!”….”well sure it’s okay, can I point you in the right di-”"Oh sure! You’d LIKE that, WOULDN’T you!? I’ll have you know that I’ve done my homework and I’m not going to fall for any of your ‘good morning ma’am’ trickery!”
Yep, the bait and switch. Here are some examples:
Whole house carpet cleaning $39!!
-please, show me one example of someone getting an entire house of carpet cleaned for $39
Drive away in this brand new Cadillac for $299 a month! – except when you get there they tell you that you were five minutes toooooo late darnit! They just sold the last one, but lemme show you this little number right over here…
Please, you could have shown up at that dealership the night before the ad ran and it still would have been too late. Oh, and while you’re there be sure to ask about the 0% financing they were offering too, I’m sure lots of people qualify for it.
There are tons of examples out there but the basic jist of it is that they lure you in with too good to be true offers and once you walk in they steer you towards other more lucrative items. A total scam, often times illegal, and you should not do business with anyone using any version of it. This goes double for flooring dealers. I am ashamed to say that our industry is one of the biggest culprits of the bait and switch. I can’t remember the last flooring ad I saw that didn’t have “.59 sf porcelain tile – (while supplies last, and we only have 98sf)” or 3 rooms of carpet installed for $299 (as long as your rooms are 5×5 or smaller)
Phooey. You should always be suspicious of these offers, and be suspect of the retailer offering them. Until things change you will unfortunately have to sift through a lot of it to accomplish your new flooring purchase, so I encourage you to put on your “if it looks too good to be true” blinders on and again -do your homework before arriving at the store. Educate yourself using unbiased resources, and check out the dealer’s reputation online before you go in.
…..which brings me to the topic of my next blogpost, the current champion of all dirty pool bait and switch gimmicks, the “Private Label” scam.
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#1. THE SHELL GAME
October 11, 2011
In my last post I talked about how The major national chain stores were publicly traded entities and they were bound by their shareholders to maintain a certain level of profits, remember? So If you are a CEO muckity muck of one of these places, you have a bit of a problem to solve. How do you get customers in the door, and how do you make them feel like they were getting a great deal when in actuality you charge them full boat prices. One of the most tried and true practices they use to solve this is by using a technique best described as “The Shell Game”. Here are a few you will likely recognize:
“Buy one room of carpet, get 3 rooms free!”
“Free padding upgrade!”
“entire house installation for just $39.00!”
Two questions – Do they think you’re stupid? …and why are they shouting?
Okay, I know you guys get it, but just for fun let’s take closer look at one of these; let’s look at the home center $39.00 whole house install. You may be shocked to learn that there are a few catches to qualify for this amazing bargain, and there are a few potential upcharges. (six pages of them actually) First, to qualify you must purchase certain qualifying items, such as their “Deluxe” carpet pad. In actuality it is a pretty standard 1/2 ” 6lb pad, something I charge about $2.5o a square yard for. Well they are charging about double that, nearly approaching a number that I might charge for pad and install combined. Weird huh?
Then there are the upcharges. Let’s assume you are willing to pay extra for the pad because you know your house is full of furniture and is going to be really costly to install, so you are still going to save a pile, right? Oh, I’m sorry, did you say you live in a place that has furniture in it? OH! Sooorrrry, you should have mentioned that earlier! Yeah, furniture is extra…like $10 PER PIECE extra. Okay fine, you call in a bunch of favors with your buddies and they come over and help you unload the house into your front yard. Whew! gonna totally be worth it right? You can’t wait until they come and tear up this old nasty carpet and…wait. Did you say you had existing flooring in the house? (sigh) If you want it actually removed as part of your package, well that’s gonna be extra. Oh, are those steps? Extra. You live more than a few miles from the store? Extra. Angled walls? Extra. Gasp! You say you need this flooring installed sooner than next June? Extra.
Just for arguments sake, let’s say you live in a ranch style house 2 blocks from the store, you moved the furniture and removed the old flooring yourself, you did all necessary sub floor preparation, etc. etc. You are in actuality only going to pay $39 for your installation right? I for one really want to know where they are getting professional installation crews willing to do a days work for $39. (My personal theory is Oompa Loompas,
but I’ll save that for another post) These guys have to pay for the material they are installing, and they have to pay the laborers to install it, so I promise you the money to pay for it is in your contract, somewhere- Thus the shell game. If they offer ridiculous discounts on one part, then the other parts are inflated to make up the difference, it’s just that simple.
So what’s the way around it? FOCUS ON THE BOTTOM LINE. That’s it, simple. Go to their “super Summer Sizzler Midnight Madness Door Busting Columbus Day sale” and apply your coupons to the manager’s special of the day – But – start paying attention when they slide that piece of paper across the desk. What are you really paying grand total installed and done. Then you take that piece of paper and tell them you are going to sleep on it, and you go to two or three other flooring dealers and you ask them for a quote on the exact same material, apples to apples. If they say they don’t carry that particular style of name brand flooring but have one that’s better for less money, and you notice that you do not recognize the manufacturer…walk. do not do business with that guy. He is trying to fool you with the topic of my next post, #2. The Bait and Switch
Hellooooo? Is there anyone here?? Hellooooo???
September 29, 2011 — 3 Comments
Who hasn’t been THAT guy at some point.
A nice afternoon get’s interrupted by a trip to… THE HOME CENTER. (thunder in background)
This is a trip of necessity – You just ran over yet another sprinkler head, your child just flushed a houseplant, the flux-capacitor on your air conditioner just exploded, whatever. You gotta make the trek to the Home Center, and you dread it. But Why? Hahahahahahaha (snort) hahaha…ohhh, I couldn’t keep a straight face, sorry. Here are a few reasons:
- It is smack in the middle of the busiest part of town and you know you are going to be fighting traffic the whole way.
- The parking lot is a demilitarized zone; You not only have to “Drive Ugly” to get a spot, but you have to be watchful for the cursed run away cart. You ever get your car whacked by one of those 600lb lumber carts? I have, not cool.
- Once inside you discover they have rearranged the entire store. This happens every time. They must think its funny, first seeing you with that stupid look on your face.
- You can’t get help. This one gets talked about a lot of course, I’ll spare you. Watch the video again if you like.
- you now have to explain to your wife why you came home with a sprinkler head, and a $200 chop saw with laser guide and ultra comfort handle.
Why do we put up with it? We want to take advantage of their volume buying savings, right? Cheapest game in town, right? biggest selection, right?
NOPE.
Why? check your 401k. All of these big home center chains are publicly traded companies. Their fortunes are tied to the price of their stock. Let’s just say that their corporate office decides it wants to go after market share more aggressively, and the best way to do this is to temporarily lower their profit margin. What kind of reaction do you think Wall Street will have to them making less money? They dump the stock, share price plummets, CEO gets fired, etc. These guys are not going to do anything to decrease profits, and will do EVERYTHING to increase them, all the while employing marketing techniques that make you THINK you are saving a bundle.
I know, long enough already Yo, so here’s the tease. I’m going to show you in detail some of the most common deceptions put in place, and how you can spot them.
Stay tuned…
May I come In?….
September 20, 2011
Yep. We have all been there -
You innocently walk onto the lot, just curious about new car prices, perhaps you wanted to see that Camaro up close, and suddenly you get that feeling creeping up the back of your neck….that feeling, like you were being watched.
Before you know it, you are shaking hands with HIM. The USED CAR SALESMAN. He’s sporting the full package – the dated sport coat, nugget ring on both pinkies, two tone shades, racing form being used as a sun visor as he sizes you up. ….And then there’s you – Deer in the headlights, not wanting to be rude but suddenly not wanting to be in the same zip code as this guy, you contemplate gnawing your arm off and running.
Flash forward 30 minutes later; you are on your way home, driving your new(ish) car off the lot, wondering what that thumping noise is, wondering what you will say to your wife. You are not sure, but you think you just got robbed- heck, you suddenly realize you may have also bought a timeshare in Belize.
No one wants to be the Rube, no one wants to be the Mark.
And no one wants one of these high pressure salespeople in their home; but that is what is happening to someone right now. I promised you guys I would be your friend in the flooring business so let my first real post be about the “shop at home” scam. You watch the commercial, you memorize the jingle, you call because you like the idea of seeing the samples quickly, and in your own home. Let me be clear, this is not about comfort, it is not about convenience; it is about getting to you to sign a contract and write a check before you have a chance to see if you are getting a good deal. The person you are inviting to your home is what is known in our profession as a “hard closer”. He is an independent contractor who is supplied flooring samples and he is supplied sales leads. To keep his job he must get a contract on one of every three sales leads he is given – if he wants to eat, he must get a check from you. He is grinning at you, but in his head he repeats over and over ABC, Always-Be-Closing.
My advice to you is simple. Don’t let him in. Shopping at home is for Amazon and Netflix, not for flooring. It may be an inconvenience to go to your local flooring store (ABL – Always Buy Local, just sayin’) but the advantages are huge. You are in charge, you can shop around for the best deal, you go with whomever you want, when you want; and as an added bonus you get to see the entire selection the store has to offer. And here is the Mantra you are going to hear over and over on these posts – Google them. Google searches are your best tool to find out the reputation of a dealer BEFORE you even step foot in the door.
Does anyone have a good “used car saleperson” story? Share it here in our comments section -(C’mon, we’ve all been there, right?)
Good Gracious this blog took forever to set up….
August 27, 2011
Hi.
sssSo….this is blogging…..
yep….ahem-
Okay, I don’t have a clue, alright? I’m just a guy from Florida who has been selling flooring down here for a really long time. As part of a revamp of my company’s marketing I became aware that we had better get hopping on the whole social media thing. Five months later we have a new(er) website,and I have a twitter account with like ten followers, and a somewhat disturbing personal addiction to Facebook. So now I’m going through with my promise to get a blog up and running. How does this usually go anyway? A couple of milk toast blogs that do a sorry job telling about how awesome your company is, then maybe another four months later another blog gets posted and then pfft. nothing.
Not me, no sir, not-gonna-happen. Why am I so confident that I won’t quickly drop my blogging efforts as well? Two words - Narcissism, Cash. You see it has been clear to me for quite some time that I am the funniest person in the room. Now I finally have the opportunity to finally prove that; prove it to my wife, to my friends, my co-workers, my loose acquaintances, that dude from that time at the Christmas party. Plus there is money on it, so this is a done deal.
Okay brass tacks time. What am I going to talk about that will hopefully be so engaging and entertaining? Flooring. Specifically, Flooring in Florida. Yes, if my job was being a driver for Lady Gaga this would likely be a lot easier. You work with what you got.
What’s my angle? Like I said, I work for a retail flooring company in the Tampa Bay area, so ultimately I would like someone near one of our stores to read it, like it, and come in and buy something from us. I hereby promise that this blog will not be a pitchathon for our company. NO SELLING, for real. There is nothing more irritating, we get that. Sure, I feel we do a lot of things right and that is going to color what I put down here, but it is my primary goal to be your new friend in the flooring business. Someone for you to turn to for information, advice, resources, etc. on buying floors. I am the first person to admit, the flooring industry has it’s share of shady dealers, hard closers, bait and switchers, and all the rest of that; but were not like that. -No really. You see, our company was founded 21 years ago by J.D. Manning. J.D. was a simple man and he had a simple philosophy, “Make ‘em a fair deal and move on”. He never allowed any “shenanigans” in his operation and he prided himself on his low overhead, high volume approach. I can remember going in early to find him auditing salepeople’s transactions. He found a couple where he felt we charged too much – he called each customer that morning and apologized to them and mailed each a refund check. He then suspended the salesperson who had the audacity to make him too much money. I can remember thinking to myself, this is retail Heaven, I’m never leaving.
Here’s what I’m going do. First, I’m going to show you all of the tricks of the trade, ALL OF THEM. We shoot straight (I sometimes wonder if we are the only ones left) so it doesn’t hurt us to give you a heads up on what to watch out for. I’m gonna break them down for you and tell you how to work it to your advantage. Second, I’m going to help you find the right floors for where you live, and how you live your life. Florida has a very hot, humid climate, and our slabs are the laughing stock of the country. Unfortunately, the state is also filled with national chain carpet baggers that are totally unfamiliar with Florida’s flooring “issues”; they are going to sell you the same flooring they are selling in Wisconsin. Don’t believe me? Go down to your nearest wood dealer that is good at liquidating inventory- any will do. Take their advice and buy the 5/16″ solid floor that they will tell you you can glue down to your slab. Go ahead and glue it down. Touch base in a couple of months, tell me how the floors are doing – maybe you could send some pictures, they are always too funny. I will always try to recommend the right floor, from the right manufacturer, for your specific needs. If I don’t, call me out on it, that’s what blogging is all about right? Lastly, I want to be a resource you can turn to for anything flooring related. You need advice on dirty grout, or a yellow mustard stain that won’t come out of your Stainmaster carpet (Not covered in the warranty FYI, see you learned something already!). Shoot me a note and I will give you an answer, or if I can’t I know the right people who can.
I’m actually looking forward to this, how weird is that? Look for my first real post in the coming couple of weeks, drop me a note if you have a subject to suggest – I’ll likely do what ever I want, but you never know.
P-
