Specialty flooring retailers are the drivers of this industry. Their success fuels every channel, from residential retail to commercial. To honor these businesses, FCNews is publishing its inaugural Retailers of the Year issue. It’s an effort to call attention to those retailers who are excelling or differentiating themselves in some aspect of their business. In this issue, suppliers and vendors nominated retailers who they believe deserved to be featured and why they stand out from the pack.
FCNews’ Retailers of the Year 2022 issue features some of the industry’s most accomplished dealers from influential buying groups as well as smaller retailers with no group affiliation. In other words, it reflects the retail industry as a whole.
In choosing their top retailer partners, suppliers looked beyond sales volume to other key attributes such as communication skills, trust, company culture and even benevolence as differentiating factors. Suppliers/vendors nominated up to four retailers (or distributors, in some cases) for consideration and explained why they stand out. FCNews then narrowed down the winners based on the scope of merit attributed to each.
Throughout this week and next, please visit FCNews.net each day as a new winner will be showcased. Today’s highlight is Lions Floor’s nominations and winners: Flooring 101 and Meek’s Midwest.
Flooring 101
Oxnard, Calif.
What Lions Floor had to say
Lions Floor is proud of their partnership with Flooring 101 and the continued growth of our program. Flooring 101 became an early supporter of Lions Floor and has increased its commitment to us—displaying and stocking Lions’ multiple lines of products in all seven locations. The range of designs, colors, sizes and price points we supplies aims to allow Flooring 101 to offer products that meet every budget and design need for their customer.
Flooring 101 has been in business for over 50 years because of their dedication to providing the very best experience for every customer. This commitment to quality and excellence pairs well with Lions Floor as we, too, strive for quality and excellence.
As Lions Floor continues to expand our product offering, we are honored to be partners with Jimmy, Ian and the entire Flooring 101 team. We appreciate the partnership and their commitment to Lions Floor.
What the winner had to say
We’ve been partners with Lions Floor for about three years now, and their products have done really well in our stores. The look they have is a West Coast look that sells in our market. It’s easy to work with, too. We’ve had no issues with the product itself and our salespeople really like working with it.
Lions just became a specialty vendor for the NFA, so they are going to be showing at our Las Vegas show at Surfaces. That is going to be a win/win. It’ll benefit us because they’ll be able to add more value; bring more to the table for us. And it’s good that we’ll be able to recommend a supplier we’ve had success with in the last three years to other members in the group.
Lions Floor is also very responsive to any needs we have as far as pricing and servicing the showroom. The response I get from the team is that they are very reactive to their needs. They service us just like we like to service our customers. And we like to see the success of a company that services their customer well.
Meek’s Midwest
Springfield, Mo.
What Lions Floor had to say
Lions Floor was an exhibitor at The International Surface Event (TISE) in January of 2022. We displayed our LVT collections to new and existing clients. One of the new connections made at the event was with Mike Lockman, flooring sales manager at Meeks Midwest, a Division of USLBM. Mike gave great feedback to Jerry Guo, president of Lions Floor, and together they worked on a program for Meeks Midwest’s 27 locations. The program has focused on consolidating the core vendors for LVT to two major suppliers in the U.S. market—one of which is Lions Floor. The partnership has taken off and with the opening of Lions Floor in Houston, Texas, Mike has been able to introduce Lions Floor to other divisions of USLBM, including Parkers Building Supply and Higginbotham’s.
“As we expand our footprint into the U.S. market by adding more distribution centers, including Dallas in the Spring of 2023, Lions Floor will be able to serve Meeks Midwest and other Divisions of USLBM more efficiently and well into the future” Guo said.
What the winner had to say
With over 100 years of experience in the lumber and building materials industry, Meek’s has earned the reputation of being a provider of expert service as well as quality building and home improvement merchandise. From our first building materials store opened in Lockwood, Mo., in 1919 to today, Meek’s recognizes the value and heritage of deep, local customer relationships as a strong foundation for growth. Currently, Meek’s operates 24 lumberyards in Arkansas and Missouri and 10 lumberyards in California and Nevada.
In 2022, we brought collections from Lions Floor into seven locations within the Meek’s Midwest organization, servicing all 24 locations centrally and being the exclusive Lions Floor dealer in our region. One of our sister chains from within US LBM, Parker’s, also brought Lions Floor into seven of their locations. In 2023, we are looking to expand our Lions footprint into a minimum of 30-50 additional locations across US LBM. Lions has been a great vendor offering excellent product with great visuals and sturdy construction, while also providing great customer service and communication with on-time shipping and top-notch vendor support with company events and more.
