Tile-tanic expansion

Home Channel News, Jan 25, 1999 by Sarah Demaster

All American remodels flooring department, and sales flood in

DOWNEY, CALIF. -- All American Home Center recently beefed up its ceramic tile offerings to compete with a neighboring Home Depot, and so far the decision has paid off.

The 150,000-square-foot retailer shares a parking lot here with Home Depot, which touts itself as the world's largest flooring retailer. All American has a 7,000-square-foot flooring and floor covering department, and carries vinyl flooring primarily from Armstrong, hardwood flooring primarily from Bruce, ceramic tile, area rugs and carpet. The home center also installs carpet, ceramic tiles, and vinyl and hardwood flooring.

When All American remodeled its flooring department this past summer, the retailer decided to expand its selection of ceramic tiles, as this category has seen double-digit growth for each of the past three years, according to Ray Dardis, general merchandise manager at All American.

He attributed All American s success with ceramic tile to the store's large number of Latino customers, who ask for this product, and to the disappearance of a number of competing specialty flooring retailers in the past few years.

"We expanded wall and floor tiles by 50 percent," Dardis said. "A lot of this was because of Home Depot -- they out-selected us with ceramic tile. We felt our assortment was puny."

To make room, All American cut its selection of Tarkett vinyl flooring and Bruce hardwood floors in half, he said. As part of the department remodeling, All American lengthened the aisles and added a number of ceramic tile displays.

Since the renovation was completed in August, All American has seen a "dramatic" increase in ceramic tile sales, Dardis said.

When it comes to competing with Home Depot on flooring, the biggest challenge All American faces is to make customers aware of its selection, according to Dardis. "Home Depot is fairly stable with its pricing on flooring," he said. "The only challenge is our selection vs. Home Depot's. When you look at their 64-page ad vs. our eight-page ad, we look puny, even though we have a lot of selection."

The independent retailer has not made any major changes in its advertising since Home Depot moved in two years ago, but simply tries to tout its selection, according to Dardis.

In addition to ceramic tile, All American also does a lot of business in area rugs, according to Dardis. The retailer has more than 300 rugs in stock from such leading manufacturers as Beaulieu and American Rug.

The rugs are merchandised on a self-help racking system with numbers that correspond to numbers on the rugs in a bin in the department. All American also has a number of special-order catalogs. "It's a category we already dominated in, so we haven't changed it," Dardis said.

All American is looking to make changes in its offerings of special-order laminate and ceramic tile, by expanding its selection in both of these categories. At the beginning of December, All American planned to introduce new special-order racks for ceramic tile. The retailer also wants to offer more of Pergo's commercial and industrial-quality laminate flooring, and has actually benefited from Home Depot's advertising of this product, according to Dardis.

As with many retailers who sell carpet, All American has not seen much growth in this category, according to Dardis. The store has about 1,200 square feet of stock rolls and special order racks, and sales have been pretty flat in the past two to three years, Dardis said.

"It's not too exciting -- there are too many other options," he said. "People want something they don't have to clean and replace as much."