BIG CHANGES IN TOP 10 ONLINE RUG RETAILERS.

HFN: The Weekly Newspaper for the Home Furnishing Network, June, 2001 by Herlihy, Janet

NEW YORK-Rug retailing at Internet sites is dominated by operations that are built on foundations of brick-and-mortar stores.

HFN revisited the Top 10 rug sites (ranked by number of hits) on Microsoft's MSN.com search engine, last reported on in November 1999, to see what changes had occurred in the span of 18 months.

While Rugsrus.com held onto its top position, seven of the other Top 10 sites in 1999 are no longer on the list at all, even though most of them are still in business. Among the top five sites, only one is solely an Internet operation.

Carpeting Unlimited Inc., based in Wheeling, W.Va., is the retail parent of Rugsrus.com. "We have a full-service floor covering retail store and a factory outlet," said Al Zambito, president of...