Hardwood Floors June/July 2019

By Stuart Hirschhorn

More importantly, wood flooring manufacturers must introduce more waterproof products to counter the growth of LVT. In the first quarter of 2019, Lumber Liquidators reported that customers were looking for waterproof flooring. Customer preferences resulted in Lumber Liquidator first-quarter sales of LVT to increase by about 22 percent, while sales of wood flooring declined by some 16 percent. Manufacturers are already introducing hybrid wood flooring to meet customer’s desire for more waterproof flooring. Cali Brands’ line of GeoWood, which combines real wood layered over the company’s GeoCore SPC limestone composite, was expanded in March 2019. Shaw Floors’ Floorté now offers a product with a waterproof SPC core with a hardwood veneer. Finally, wood flooring sales could gain some traction from the decline in hardwood lumber prices during 2019. Lower lumber costs could translate into more competitive wood flooring prices and hopefully higher demand. Catalina Research will be tracking wood flooring industry trends during 2019 including an analysis of U.S. manufactured versus foreign-sourced products, customer demographics, and retail distribution, and the outlook for 2020. For more information contact Stuart Hirschhorn, Director of Research at 561.988.0853 or shirschhorn@ catalinareports.com. Also, visit our website catalinareports.com. Stuart Hirschhorn is Director of Research for Catalina Research Inc. in Highland Beach, Florida. He can be reached at 561.988.0853 or shirschhorn@catalinareports.com.

flooring’s competitive position. Wood flooring prices rose due to increases in hardwood lumber prices throughout 2018, while import prices increased in the first quarter of 2019 due to the imposition of an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese-made wood flooring in September 2018. These trends could result in a 4.9 percent increase in average wood flooring selling prices during 2019. This compares to a less than 1 percent increase for total U.S. floor coverings prices. The additional tariff on China-made wood flooring impacted U.S. selling prices since imports represent about 40 percent of total U.S. wood flooring dollar sales, and Chinese manufacturers account for about one-third of total U.S. imports. In addition, as the price of Chinese-made wood flooring increased, the supply chain shifted to suppliers in Belgium, Canada, Malaysia, and Poland. As a result, average import prices could increase by nearly 12 percent during 2019. To counter the negative factors in the marketplace, wood flooring manufacturers and marketers need the decline in mortgage interest rates in March and April to spark a housing recovery in the second half of 2019. This is imperative due to wood flooring’s high dependence on residential markets. Wood flooring manufacturers and marketers must also find a way to increase their penetration of commercial markets. Wood flooring is estimated to account for less than 8 percent of total commercial floor coverings purchases. Marketers must find a way to boost usage since commercial floor coverings purchases have continued to increase in late 2018 and early 2019 as nonresidential building construction spending remained on an upward trend.

Photo courtesy of Somerset.

designs and texturing technologies. The original rigid core products utilized an expanded foam polymer core, known as WPC. During the past year, several manufacturers have introduced planks with a solid polymer core, known as SPC. The denser SPC flooring allowed LVT to be used in a wider range of applications. The new LVT floors have been accepted by residential and commercial customers with LVT sales increasing some 40 percent per year in dollars and square feet in 2018 and 2019. As a result, LVT could increase to 16 percent to 17 percent of total U.S. floor coverings dollar sales, up from less than 2 percent in 2007. LVT prices became more competitive as investments in new production capacity in Asia and the U.S. caused LVT prices to begin to weaken. At the same time, wood flooring prices were rising sharply. This cut into wood

the magazine of the national wood flooring association

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