Plunging residential carpet sales?

Sloppy installation, bad sales practices and the "cheaper is better" mentality have teamed up with the housing downturn to punish carpet sales. There's nothing I can do about any of those, but I can try to influence cleaners to be kind to carpet, since we make our living on it.

Exuberant in-fighting among carpet cleaners inevitably finds its way into advertising. Negative comments, even if true, should never appear in anything that may reach the consumer. For example, a few cleaners are touting the exclusionary SOA program and the fact that they are the only service approved by the CRI in their area, making it seem that carpet is difficult to clean and only a select few can do it right. This is not what the consumer needs to hear.

Instead of belittling one another, we need to talk about the many fine attributes of carpet and how easy it is to clean. It's quiet and offers acoustical comfort in noisy times when nerves are tattered. Insulating qualities are attractive with today's high energy costs. Carpet offers a wide range of decor possibilities, it's durable and prevents slip and fall accidents. It's reasonably priced, too, which is a great talking point with the slumping economy. Factoring in inflation, carpet costs less today than it did thirty years ago and the quality is better.

Best of all, carpet costs less to maintain than other floor covering products. In the 46 years I've been in this business nearly everything we buy has increased in price more than ten fold. In many instances quality has diminished with the rising prices. By comparison, thanks to improved technology, the average cleaning service has only tripled in price and the results are better. I hope this doesn't change because of CRI's expensive testing program.

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