Texas Flooring Group Purchase Organization

Texas Flooring Distributors was founded by each with backgrounds in  the wood flooring / furniture industries, Stephen specializing in national brand marketing,  in retail and subcontracting, and  in China and Mexico manufacturing.    Our business model was developed by a team of interested parties having more than 100 years of combined experience in product development, manufacturing, distribution, brand marketing, and retail flooring.  The model is structured as a not-for-profit group purchase organization, comprised of group owners and members, most of which are retail flooring business owners.   We are distinguished from other buying groups in three business functions, product management, branding, and digital marketing.  Collectively, retailers have greater capabilities in localized brand development than distributors or manufacturers, which underperform in local marketing, the primary driver of their business.  Retailers that control a brand have incentive and ability to contribute to its sustainable growth, particularly when buying pallets at direct container purchase pricing.  Good looking products at unbeatable prices that can not be shopped is the formula.

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Building a hardwood and laminate flooring brand of hardwood and laminate retail flooring owners of various industry backgrounds, and collectively building a brand and product line focused exclusively on the Texas market.  The buying group model prescribes strategic focus on five primary business objectives:

  1. Strategic advantage in price-promotion competition.
  2. Strategic advantage in blended margin capacities.
  3. Strategic advantage in regional and local digital marketing, i.e. products that focus solely on the Texas market.
  4. Strategic advantage in factory cooperation and oversight.
  5. Strategic advantage in product design capacity.

product design, and localized brand development.  The cumulative synergies to support and sustain the model.  If you have received a password, click here to review Phase II disclosures.  If not, feel free to browse the website to learn the basics.   Please note that there are six phases of disclosures that must be completed by all prospective members.  A non disclosure & confidentiality agreement is required at Phase III.  Interested parties shall be not be revealed to any party, other than the founders, prior to Phase VI.

– VI are , and  which is revealed to interested parties, in six Phase vetting process, is, we believe of extraordinary value to the retail sector of the flooring industry.

web portal, ise business model has been developed by a team of interested parties from the U.S. and China, mostly furniture and flooring industry veterans.

, from the U.S. and China.  opportunity for Texas flooring retailers.  If you own a retail flooring establishment, you’re probably somewhat familiar with flooring buying groups, or similar group purchase organizations.   purchase organization, serving the Texaplex corridor, roughly 20M population, comprising nearly half the GDP of France.  At its core, our strategic objective is to capture five percent market share of all engineered hardwood sold in Texas within within three years.  Our members will have a strategic advantage in three segments, price, design, and exclusivity.  The formula for success is simple:  Be the only outfit in town that sells better looking products at container-buy pricing.  to sell for Texas, by Texas designed products at unbeatable prices and/or unbeatable margins, and  objective is the strongest hardwood and laminate flooring brands. from independently operated warehouse hubs in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.   committed to serving the great state of Texas.

Our group consists of a veteran factory manager based in Shanghai,   Texas-based wood floor designers and craftsmen, flooring retailers, installation firms.

Veteran Factory, Product, and Brand Managers

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  1. Confidential, Product Design Consultant (custom woodworking craftsman), Texas
  2. Flooring Retailers A, B, & C, Distribution Managers, Houston, Austin, San Antonio (Confidential until Phase VI)
  3. Flooring Retailers TBD, GPO Members, State-wide
  4. Home Builders / Installation Firms / R.E. Developers, GPO Members, State-wide

e buy products designed by Texas our fifty years combined experience working with Chinese manufacturers.  For example, the formula for success in sustainable factory relationships in China is a function of the following variables:

  1. Purchase volumes
  2. Purchase consistency
  3. Purchasing Budget commitments
  4. Cultural & Language understanding

Furthermore, these variables do not address the success of an import private label program.  The formula for success in product management is a function of the following variables:

    1. Participation in timber (veneer face) sourcing.
    2. Participation in product design and tooling.
    3. Participation in all phases of production.
    4. Cooperative management of QC & CAPA.

There is much more to a factory relationship than price.  Distributors can keep retailers on a hook with just a few good deals on hand scraped engineered wood flooring, but too often, in Texas we are offered products that were originally designed for California or the Eastern U.S.  If you could purchase 20 or so SKUs of nice product super cheap, you would be doing quite well, with the exception of one super serious problem – flooring retailers up the road are selling the same product mix.  This is exactly why the problem we face, when buying direct, is two fold – purchasing products inspired by Texas interior design tastes, and buying at a price that local competitors can not match.  A buying group can tackle both problems, but most fall short in offshore factory relations, and a greater number lack capabilities in cooperation or participation with production and design management and inputs.

Over the past decade, virtually all flooring distributors have sought to develop private label flooring brands to service their respective markets, in response to increasing downward pressures on market prices.  Those distributors which have excellent supply relationships with offshore suppliers have established a competitive advantage through economic recession.  The offshore phenomenon that we experienced in the flooring industry was unavoidable and after off-shoring so many flooring industry inputs, with automation playing an increasing role in production, the U.S. flooring industry is unlikely repatriate those industrial inputs any time soon.  Even if offshore labor rate projections are grossly underestimated, it is still highly unlikely to see budget hand scraped flooring.

a price-sensitive real estate market.   to establish an increasing segment of market share for brands that they attempt to develop in their respective territories.  nd “control”. particularly wood flooring, Flooring distributors face a common problem in that they typically lack significant control overThe problem with buying from Chinese factories is control of product design, construction, and quality.
Hypothetically speaking, let’s say that you operate three retail flooring locations and purchase 20,000 SF/mo/location of engineered hardwood in 2014.  If your blended margin on sales of the total 720,000 SF (or 240,000 SF/location) is at 18%, after discounts and losses, your retail operations would generate $2.08M (@ $2.89 avg sell price) in Revenues for the period, just over $500,000 in profit.  This is where your business is headed, relatively speaking.  Improving control of your supplier base will become an increasingly important key to your sustainable profitability.  Margins will continue to thin and competitive advantages will become a product of outsmarting existing distribution channels that are in a critical position to do the same, reinforce the brands that are available to their market

Over the past decade, the retail flooring market has changed considerably, mostly due to Chinese manufacturers’ rise in influence of the U.S. flooring industry. China has become a world leader in the manufacturing of hard surface flooring products, while U.S. manufacturers have struggled to compete, at the mercy of U.S. trade policy and competitive advantages in Chinese manufacturing. Prices have eroded dramatically, while sales volumes have declined and remain volatile.   Flooring distributors have struggled to survive, while Chinese firms look to vertical integration strategic planning, with many selling direct to end users in the U.S. market, particularly in California. Retailers have become increasingly reliant on pricing strategies to drive online and offline traffic to retail locations, yet purely online shopping models have proven unsuccessful, consumers still preferring a hands-on approach to product selection. Manufacturer prices are approaching equilibrium, but many analysts say that there is still room for price cuts, as manufacturing efficiencies continue to improve. Regardless of price changes, China is still considered the most stable flooring industrial complex, as supply chain, design & production, technology, and labor inputs are most stable there. Viet Nam is expected to be more competitive with China in the coming decade. Small flooring retailers will face new challenges in the next decade, as downward pressure on pricing will continue to be impacted by economic and U.S. fiscal policy constraints. Most of the hundreds of flooring exporters in China will become more involved in foreign-branding of their products, with many new Chinese entrants into the retail and wholesale / distribution U.S. flooring markets.

With mounting market pressures on flooring distributors, many flooring retailers will realize an increasing need to buy containers direct from China. Retail chains and buying groups will have greater capability to buy in container volumes, enabling them to advertize a variety of low-cost-leader items to increase traffic and sell higher margin products to increase profits. This will also create more flexibility in blended margin pricing strategies and improve in-store sales opportunities, adding value to customer impressions at each stage of the sales cycle, from initial contact to customer referrals. Low prices are, in principle, a function of high value. Every cent discounted is an opportunity to add value to your customers. From the minute that she steps into your door, she is curious about the prices, first and foremost. Flooring product attributes such as style and quality are a typically secondary value functions in U.S. consumer buying behavior. In any case, low prices, wide product selection, and excellent service together make a typical value equation for most U.S. retail customers. Retailers that are more capable of competing on price have a head start in the value equation that they are competing to offer to the market.

 

supplied to the U.S. market. The Retail Flooring market has a proportionally greater number of competitors than most non-food, walk-in retail markets. The majority of flooring retailers are family owned and compete for a sliver of a very large market share. Flooring distributors have historically had a unique symbiotic relationship with small business owners. Flooring sales at home centers is on the rise, threatening the hundreds of flooring manufacturers that are becoming increasingly dependent on localized markets. models have historically been  Price is a leading customer attractant and retailers that are able to compete on price tend to acquire more customer traffic, both offline and online leads, due to pricing strategy, where service quality reputation is maintained at a high standard.

 

is comprised of a vast number of competitors, most having a sliver of tiny market shares.   Flooring distributors are in a difficult situation. With few exceptions, most flooring distributors are not able to compete with manufacturers in regional or national consumer brand development. Today, most distributors realize that consumer product branding is essential to their long term success.   know very little about consumer brand development and most are deficient in manufacturing and product development. They do not know how to design products, but use a hit-and-miss product selection strategy, whereas manufacturers consult with regional focus group and A&D advisory teams. The result of this is selecting a majority of force-fed products from the manufacturers that they do business with. This is a big hill to climb to say the least. Going from distribution to brand mastery, product development, engineering, manufacturing is difficult. But that is exactly what is coming, and it will come from China, slowly and quietly, but certainly. Retailers are actually being harmed by the ineptitude of their distributor suppliers. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get customers to walk in your door, while distributors are being duped and dependant.

Texas Flooring Buying Group