Visitors to the Kährs space at the annual NWFA convention earlier this year got their first look at the company’s new Estates collection, the by-product of a partnership with a domestic hardwood manufacturer. After receiving feedback from customers, retailers and distributor partners, the company is hitting the market with a curated, 16-SKU collection created with U.S. consumers in mind.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Sean Brennan, president of Kährs Americas. “We’ve been working on this since October of last year—talking about it, planning it, going through a couple different phases. It’s a new chapter in our history, and it’s the first time that we’ve produced our own products like this domestically. We’ve outsourced a little bit before and done a few things many years ago, but nothing of this significance. To develop a range from scratch and produce here in the U.S. is very exciting.”
Out of roughly 22 samples previewed at NWFA, the Kährs team whittled down the offering to what it says are true winners in the market. “We took the feedback on the different colorations that we showcased in NWFA to determine what customers liked vs. what they disliked to come up with the final 16 colors featured in the first phase of the launch,” said Renee Tester, marketing director. “The initial offering features a selection of oak, maple and hickory species in formats ranging from 5 inches up to 7 ½- and 9 ½-inch-wide planks at the top end.”
As the name implies, the new collection is derived from the majestic European-inspired estates that are built here in the U.S. These structures, according to Kährs, typically start with a strong foundation—the bones that, according to Tester, hold everything up. “For us that foundation is not only that the line is made in USA, but that it’s also backed by what you expect out of Kährs,” she explained. “Everything from the quality, the sustainability, the durability, the customer service—all of those expectations that we have led with was 40-plus years here in the U.S. It’s still based on that same premise.”
While the initial launch is certainly “targeted,” by no means is it limited. By working with a stateside supplier, the company has the ability to quickly adjust colors, patterns or designs to ensure the products are in keeping with the tastes of U.S. consumers. “The good thing about doing this here is we can be a little bit more nimble on the color range, which gives us a quicker turnaround,” Tester explained. “We definitely leveraged what we know based on our existing colorways and what’s trending in the European market to develop some of the colors that we’re seeing here in America.”
Working with domestic manufacturing operations also offers additional advantages, namely the fulfillment of special requests. As Brennan explained: “What’s really unique about this partnership is we can do a lot of just-in-time manufacturing if we need to because the investment that we’ve made in the raw materials. We produce our own plywood in Europe and then we source the veneers, so we have the products ready to go. A customer could come to us and say, ‘Can you put this stain, or that design, or this finish?’ Then we can produce it and get it out in a much faster way than what we could do before.”
The shorter production timelines are significant. While Kährs has always had the ability to facilitate custom orders for U.S. customers, that service has been augmented thanks to the domestic partnership. “Sourcing Estates here in America gives us the ability to be able to do 5,000 feet, 10,000 feet or 15,000 feet much easier than samples going back and forth from Europe, trying to coordinate that special color, getting it exactly right, then bringing over a container,” Brennan explained. “It was always much more difficult for us to do those custom jobs, especially in the upper end and in the A&D world. We could do it, but it had to be at a certain scale to do it profitably, and we needed a lot of time. This gives us the flexibility to do that quite easily.”
This logistical advantage is not just more practical. It also results in products that generate better profit margins for retailers and distributors because there are fewer costs associated with shipping finished product from Europe. “With this collection you’re not dealing with transportation within Europe to the port combined with overseas freight,” Brennan explained. “We don’t have to deal with any of that.”
Something for everyone
In developing the colors, Kährs was careful to take regional preferences into account. This meant soliciting opinions from leading design firms around the country beyond those who attended the spring wood flooring show. While some colors demonstrated a universal appeal, preferences were still largely regional.
“In the Pacific Northwest, retailers are really interested in the maples and the hickories, while the Midwest customers prefer more of the cleaner tones, more traditional, muted tones,” Brennan said. “Then you have pockets in California and Florida where they’re asking for more custom-type products, which we can do as well. But I think some of the new species to our line will sell as well. We’re rolling out what we believe is the best color range first, and then we’ll start to tweak it from there.”
In a move to further appeal to U.S. installers and consumers alike, the new Estates collection features a tongue-and-groove locking system. “It’s nothing new to the overall market, but for our product assortment it is new,” Tester explained. “It shows our customers that not only do we have these tried-and- true wood locking systems that we’ve used for so many years, but we’ve expanded into having that tongue and groove system, which can go into more applications. The combination that we can offer now—European, high-quality, fixed-length, traditionally floating floors combined with more American species and a style of installation that is more conducive in the U.S.—brings a lot of value for Kährs here in America.”
Long-time customers like All Tile, a Kährs distributor for the past 30 years, attested to the company’s quality-first mindset. “The reason it’s been such a successful partnership for that long is because of the quality of the product and the people at Kährs,” said Steve Rosenthal, senior vice president of sales. “They’ve continued to rely on the Swedish engineering that is still the basis of the products’ construction, while keeping up with color trends and other market segment needs.”
