Bedrosians carves its niche in stone - Marble, granite and slate - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Oct 22, 2001 by Brae Canlen

California-based tile and natural stone dealer stays current with trends and serves a range of customers

IN AN ERA WHEN RETAILERS ARE TRYING TO offer everything to everybody, Bedrosians is content to carve its niche in marble, granite and slate. Founded in 1948 by an Armenian family in northern California, Bedrosians has built a chain of 28 units that specialize in natural stone, along with porcelain and ceramic tiles. The company has concentrated mostly on California, Nevada, Arizona and Washington, but in 1998 it leapt across the nation to Florida, where Bedrosians now has a distribution center and three showrooms.

A firm believer in boosting business though its customers' businesses, Bedrosians sells primarily to contractors, architects, interior designers and other retailers. (Expo Design Centers buy from them.) But Bedrosians doesn't turn away DIY decorators, who often go to great lengths to get the same selection as the pros.

At Bedrosians' westernmost location, in an industrial park in San Diego, branch manager Elaine Brunson gave out careful telephone directions. Brunson said she wouldn't mind a more visible showroom on Miramar Road, where many of San Diego's flooring and furniture retailers are concentrated. But for now, the small Bedrosians outlet is doing just fine, judging from the steady foot traffic on a recent Monday afternoon. Some customers were professionals who speak the industry lingo and knew exactly what they want. Others were homeowners sent by their architects and subcontractors to pick out tile. A few came clueless, with no precise design or type of material in mind.

"Whether it's 20 [tiles] or 200, they mean just as much to me walking through the door," Brunson said. Consumers need a lot more hand holding, she admits. But Brunson is willing to formulate a design based on clipped magazine pictures and scrawled dimensions. "Sometimes they get frustrated by too many choices," she observed. "I have to try and lead them through."

The San Diego showroom is neatly divided into halves, with ceramic tile on one side and porcelain on the other. Each tile is displayed in all its available sizes, along with matching chair rails, quarter rounds and other pieces of trim. One wall is nothing but natural stone: marble, granite, limestone, travertine and slate. Some specialty items, like tile mosaics or colored glass blocks, run across the top and bottom of the fixtures. The marked prices are retail; professionals get the products at a lower cost.

Although contractors are prized by retailers for their repeat business, Brunson pointed out that homeowners rarely stop with one remodeling project. As if on cue, a woman walked through Bedrosians' front entrance, explaining how she plans to redo her kitchen in eight months. But first she has to replace all the tile in a bathroom flooded by an inept plumber. Price is not an issue; the insurance company is footing the bill. She found Bedrosians in the Yellow Pages.

Like most people who visit Bedrosians, the homeowner leaves with a loaner tile. In a small warehouse attached to the showroom, Brunson keeps samples of almost every tile on the floor. "You can't really sell something like this to people without letting them take it home, to compare it to other colors in their house," she explained.

DIYer or pro, Bedrosians customers share one characteristic: they want their tile right away. Brunson can get most products within 48 hours, thanks to the retailer's distribution network. Bedrosians runs trucks between its warehouses and. showrooms every two days, on average. This part of the transportation equation is easy, compared to the logistics of bringing in tile from all over the globe. "We import from every continent except maybe Antarctica," Ara Movsesian, the company's director of marketing said. Oversold suppliers, quarry strikes, natural disasters - all are threats to a regular supply.

Like all specialty retailers, Bedrosians tries to differentiate itself through unique product offerings. It makes its own slabs, usually for kitchen and bath countertops, at its fabrication plants in Fresno and Anaheim. Bedrosians also offers its own line of tile, made by a manufacturer in Brazil. Its newest introduction is a series of mosaic medallions made by Tilecrest. These intricate patterns, made of small marble or travertine stones, add a Old World touch to entryway floors or accent walls. Bedrosians also carries lower priced mosaics by American Olean, a manufacturer that sells a line of U.S.-made products through exclusive dealers like Bedrosians.

Staying ahead of trends - or in some cases, creating them - is another way that Bedrosians competes in the marketplace. Consumer preference for larger floor tiles (20 by 20 inches or 24 by 24 inches) has not caught Bedrosians unawares. The retailer is also stocking cross-cut (as opposed to horizontally sliced) travertine and limestone.

Bedrosians helped pioneer the idea of using wall tile on floors, according to Movsesian. The company also promoted the use of porcelain floor tile on kitchen and bathroom counters.