Great choices lead to great design!
Today more than ever customers are demanding more choices. The internet has opened up a whole new arena for customers to explore options that can be used to furnish and decorate their homes. HGTV has given customers yet another venue to observe style trends without having to leave their home. Gone are the days when the only real options were found in home furnishing magazines like Architectural Digest, Traditional Home, Veranda and Florida Design.
In the home furnishing business, I believe there is a fine line between having enough options for the customer and having so many that the end result is customer confusion. Customers can easily be overwhelmed given the number of choices in the market. At Lewis Floor & Home we strive to shop the world over and cut out products that do not offer the best value in their category. In reality there is so much duplication that I believe it takes
almost twice as long for our buyers to do this then it did only five years ago.
Items that were literally ground breaking five years ago are in most cases obsolete today. Technology continues to improve in all areas. Carpet is more stain resistant and new fibers and manufacturing equipment are helping to improve both the look and durability of carpet. Porcelain tile looks more like real stone everyday and large format tiles that were almost impossible to find five years ago are the rule as opposed to the exception. Wood floors have better more environmentally friendly finishes and engineered floors have been dramatically improved to the point they are outselling solid wood flooring.
Add to this glass tile, metal tile, leather tile, tile with recycled content, new styles in window treatments, luxury vinyl tile, quartzite countertops, brushed finishes, leather finishes, honed finishes, frameless kitchen cabinets, floating floors and thousand of new area rug designs.
Given the above it is easy to see how keeping up with today’s best offerings is a real challenge for a home furnishing retailer.
At Lewis Floor & Home we attend major markets around the world in order to keep our merchandise not only fresh but to make sure that it offers the best design at competitive pricing. This has become a twelve month job. What I will promise you is at Lewis Floor & Home we will continue to search the world to bring back the very best suppliers have to offer and support the best brands in our industry.
Brands like Karastan, Mohawk, Shaw, Masland, Fabrica, Stanton, Nourison and Godfrey Hirst in carpet. Mannington, Tarkett and Amtico in luxury vinyl. Peverco, Shaw, Mohawk, U.S. Floors, Hallmark and Haro wood, Hunter Douglas in window treatments. Showplace and Cuisines Laurier in kitchen cabinetry, Caesarstone and Hanstone in quartzite countertops. All these brands are leaders in their markets and together with our stocking programs of products from overseas will help make Lewis Floor & Home a destination that customers can count on for the selection they need to assure that their homes represent all
the value and style they expect.