Hardwood Flooring February March 2018

By Lindsay Konzak

flooring industry, he says claims go down dramatically when an installer has training unique to the product type being installed. Gould urges the wood flooring industry to invest in educating the consumer on the importance of proper installation. “The idea of getting someone who’s bonded or has experience or even works for a legitimate retailer or contractor doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing (with every floor type),” says Gould. “That’s one of the problems that someone like Amazon has unless they make a requirement that all of their installers are NWFA-certified professionals.” Are products next? With its interest in installation services, Amazon’s next natural step may be to grow their wood flooring product selection, which is currently limited. Amazon didn’t comment by press time for this article, so it’s unknown if this is in their plans. But Amazon continues to pursue newmarkets aggressively, and according to some analysts, its foray into more-complex products like flooring is inevitable. Because of the challenges inherent in selling flooring online, however, Amazon’s best bet may be to use existing distributors and retailers through its third-party seller network rather than try to do it all themselves. In other verticals, this has proven to be profitable for some sellers but has had its cons. Among them: limited access to customer data, which Amazon is notorious for holding tight. It’s worth noting that Amazon has the capital to buy its own required infrastructure into the wood flooring space, as well, whether that’s a chain of smaller companies or one large one as they did when they bought Whole Foods in 2017. Other online-only competitors, including Vancouver, British Columbia- based BuildDirect, have been selling wood flooring online for years. Some in the industry take BuildDirect’s recent bankruptcy filing as evidence the online model at scale doesn’t work, but the company claims its filing for reorganization was driven in large part by cash-flow challenges related to investments into the technology driving its platform. In its Nov. 3 filing for relief under Canada’s Companies Creditors Arrangement Act, BuildDirect said it hasn’t been profitable since its 1999 founding, but still believes in “heavy, hard-to-ship products” as an “underserved market offering tremendous opportunity for growth.” In October, BuildDirect tapped former Amazon Business executive Dan Park to lead the business, reaffirming its commitment. Just as with Amazon, BuildDirect is built on a hybrid internal and third- party seller model. It’s the latter that BuildDirect has invested heavily in during the past year, creating a seller portal that allows its partners to not only manage their own product listings but take advantage of built-in

the magazine of the national wood flooring association

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