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 Republic Floors’ nominations and winners: Carpeteria and Hernandez Wholesale Flooring.
Carpeteria Design Center
Lancaster, Calif.
What Republic Floors had to say
In May 2014, we began our partnership with Carpeteria. They’ve changed hands over the years and Jack Van Boheemen—who was our buyer at the time and helped found the company—is now the owner. When we first came to Carpeteria our warehouse wasn’t even functional yet, but they were willing to take on our racks and try out this new company called Republic. They gave us a shot.
Today, Carpeteria is a retailer we can bounce ideas off of and who gives us great information and feedback. There’s never been a problem we couldn’t resolve—and that’s based on the close relationship we’ve been able to forge over the years. And at the end of the day, it is a partnership. We do a lot of promotions together, at both locations, and we do a lot of product training together. It’s truly a great partnership that we’ve forged together.
What the winner had to say
Carpeteria has been a proud partner of Republic Flooring for almost 10 years. As one of our largest SPC/WPC/laminate suppliers, Republic has been consistently providing quality products that we are proud to sell to our customers. We provide a Lifetime Labor Warranty on all installations, so we strive to only provide the best quality products in our store. The customer service team at Republic has always been extremely helpful with checking stock, placing orders, arranging deliveries and, in the rare occasion, dealing with claims. With Carpeteria being in business for over 20 years, it is important that we provide our customers with products that will reflect well on us and our long-standing reputation. Republic has always been a supplier that we can count on, and we look forward to our continued business relationship with them.
Hernandez Wholesale Flooring
Commerce, Calif.
What Republic Floors had to say
Hernandez Carpet has always been a great partner of ours. They have a showroom strategy that allows us to showcase new products when they first come in. And we can bounce ideas off of each other—whether that’s what the market is looking for from their perspective or information on product categories that we’re not even currently in. There’s nothing like talking to your retailers to give you great market information. We can look at market research but they are the ones talking to consumers day in and day out, so they are a great source for us as we look to bring new products to market.
From Day 1, which was May 2014, we’ve been able to form personal relationships with the owners, Steven and Carlos. They are only a mile from us, too, which has helped promote our close relationship. For example, when we have consumers asking us for product, we’re able to send them directly to Hernandez. Those leads help support their business and it adds a lot of value.
