| CARPET ONE FLOOR & HOME "TURNS IT ON" AT THEIR SUMMER CONVENTION IN CINCINNATI
CINCINNATI, OH (July 16, 2007) – Carpet One Floor & Home held their annual summer convention this week in Cincinnati, OH at the Duke Energy Convention Center. Thousands of Carpet One Floor & Home members, employees and industry suppliers gathered for three days of sharing ideas, interacting with industry colleagues and hearing about the company’s latest innovations and initiatives.
“We’re having a great year and I really feel that this is going to be our best convention ever,” said Carpet One Floor & Home President, Evan Hackel. “Our theme this summer is ‘Turn it On’ and that is exactly what we plan to do this year. We’re on a mission to steal market share and grow our businesses significantly. We’re introducing some exciting new products and initiatives this convention that will certainly help us achieve this mission.”
“There is definitely a unique energy and sense of excitement in the air during this convention,” continued Carpet One Floor & Home COO, Charlie Dilks. “We’re really looking forward to updating the membership on the status of our Five-Year Plan, the goals we are achieving and the new initiatives planned for the upcoming year.”
A key Five-Year Plan initiative has been to present the membership with exceptional products and merchandising so they can differentiate themselves from the competition. In response to the Carpet One Floor & Home Product Council’s recommendations, the company is introducing a new exclusive laminate collection – the Mirror Lake Collection – as part of the SelectAFloor system.
Carpet One Floor & Home has partnered with Unilin to offer 12 completely exclusive styles as part of the Mirror Lake Collection. One of the most exciting attributes of the Unilin products is that they have the densest core in the industry. Plus, these products will have a impressive 30-day Water Warranty and 30-day No Questions Asked Warranty. The Mirror Lake Collection will include 114 SKUs with beautiful hand-scraped and exotic hardwood styles and tile, stone and granite styles.
Carpet One Floor & Home is also introducing new styles to their exclusive Liz Claiborne Home and Liz Claiborne Prestige collections and to their Color Stories line in the Good Housekeeping collection.
Another critical Five-Year Plan goal for the year has been getting sales professionals more engaged in store operations. This past May, in conjunction with the Lees spokes-pet store event, Carpet One Floor & Home launched the Great North American Lees Challenge (GNALC). The program challenged sales professionals to sell Lees products throughout May and June. The challenge winner, announced at the convention, will win 100 square yards of Lees carpet for their own home.
Because of the excitement that this incentive generated, Carpet One Floor & Home is set to launch a new incentive platform this fall called Tour de Floors. The Tour de Floors will run from October through December 2007 and will spotlight a number of vendors and Carpet One Floor & Home exclusive product lines including Mannington, IVC, Liz Claiborne Home, and Lees. Like the actual bike race, the company will reward individual winners, stage winners, and a three month overall winner.
Part of Carpet One Floor & Home’s mission to gain market share includes generating excitement and driving traffic at the store level. At this convention, the company revealed two fully-integrated in-store event campaigns for the fall, featuring advertising, public relations, in-store merchandising and sales incentives. During the “Shop for Pink” event, which kicks off in October, stores will raise funds for breast cancer awareness through sales of pink ribbon products. This event complements the company’s semi-annual Carpet One Welcomes Your Support campaign, during which stores sell pink ribbon welcome mats to benefit the breast cancer cause. Carpet One Floor & Home will support the store event with a national advertising effort.
The company will launch another fully-integrated store event in November, focused on their exclusive Lees collection. Carpet One Floor & Home has paired Lees carpet styles with complementing furry friends to promote the stain resistant qualities of the flooring that make it perfect for pet-owners. Stores will be contributing to two pet-friendly charities through this event. The October and November store events are set to drive traffic to local stores, helping them to increase awareness and ultimately grow their businesses
Carpet One Floor & Home’s e-commerce initiative was also a big focus of the convention. The company now advertises three avenues for consumers to shop: the traditional in-store, online at CarpetOne.com and now, in-home. This message is generating an explosion of consumer requests for in-home measures and consultations. As a result of this new trend, Carpet One Floor & Home is making the push to educate storeowners and their employees on the strategies of in-home selling. At the convention, members will have the opportunity to attend a special breakout session on the topic. Plus, Carpet One Floor & Home University has rolled out online training courses dedicated to this topic.
After three days of meetings, break-out sessions, networking activities and exhibit hall time, Carpet One Floor & Home members and business partners gathered at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal for a party, complete with socializing, activities and refreshments.
About Carpet One Floor & Home
Carpet One Floor & Home (www.CarpetOne.com) is North America’s largest floor covering retailer, with over 1,000 locations in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The stores are known for a broad selection of floor covering products, distinctive warranties, excellent service and exclusive brand names, including Liz Claiborne Home, Lees and Good Housekeeping. With annual sales of more than $3.9 billion, Carpet One Floor & Home is the largest division of CCA Global Partners, a leading management and marketing company serving the retail and service community. Carpet One Floor & Home headquarters are in Manchester, NH; St. Louis, MO; Ontario, Canada; and Queensland, Australia.
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