JULY 13, 2016
Knowing the trends and display options is key
By Sue Masaracchia-Roberts
Fashion and design in home décor hold more emphasis than ever before, providing an edgier way for those in the home furnishings market to compete. Nowhere is this truer than with rugs, where colors, patterns, sizes and display techniques are among the greatest shifts in the current market.
Larger rug patterns, bolder prints and feathers, combined with hand-knotted rugs in colors not shown before lead the way with consumers this year. Modern styling, vintage antique looks, overdye rugs and distressed styles are also trending. Viscus, silky rugs are popular styles heading into fall, while shades of blue, greys and ivory are among the ‘hot’ colors being featured.
Nourison president Alex Peykar says, “Casual and worn looks are on top of the chart, while another popular category is the modern traditional, combining revised and traditional designs with simplified soft tones that lend themselves to a modern setting.”
Pat Howard, vice president of HFA member Sklar Furnishings, attended the Milan Furniture Fair where she noticed the return of fringe to rugs. She also said rugs are far more durable today without sacrificing style. “The raw materials used are far superior to ones in the past,” she says. “They take color better, are more stain resistant and allow for fabulous new designs. We love the carpets that are one color when you walk towards them and another when you walk away.”
“These days,” says The Rug Market president Andrew Shabtai, “everyone has his own designers and professionals who stay in the know and are attentive to detail. They have to keep an eye out for what is going on [in the marketplace]. [As a result,] we definitely strive to produce the highest quality, [the most] on-trend, best designs possible.” He adds, “The more you learn [about this category], the more it will become successful.”
“Hardwood floors lead to the need for area rugs, especially if you want to preserve the floors or prevent scrapes,” says Jessica Bartels, of Rugs America. “Decoratively, they add dimension to a room. People also want something soft and warm to put their feet on.”
The way consumers use rugs is also a trend to consider. Rugs don’t need to be limited to floor accessories either. “If you have a nice decorative wall, with the right amount of design and color pop, it will catch attention and makes a great setting work,” says Shabtai.
In addition, manufacturers are constantly testing new materials to enhance their products and increase affordability. “Over the past 10 years, new fibers, loom advances and textures have come to the forefront,” says Brandon Culpepper, vice president of specialty sales for Mohawk/American Rug Craftsman. “Bamboo, undyed wool, microfiber and a sustainable ever-strand fabric made from recycled water bottles, along with smart-strand yarns made from biofuels—both Mohawk innovations—are very soft and durable. Soft sells.”
“Machine-made rugs have really stepped up with quality and super soft durable fibers at compelling price points,” says Emily Vickers, category manager for HFA member Badcock Home Furniture & More. In addition to seeing a lot of new colors, Vickers adds, “I’ve been seeing a lot of transitional rugs with distressing and blown up traditional patterns without borders, mimicking old antique rugs.”
Safavieh marketing manager Chris Sippel says so many high-styled, high-quality rugs now can be made at a price that reaches a wider audience. “They strike an emotion and are something [consumers] can see in their own homes,” he says. “With people being very busy in this high-tech, information overload society, area rugs create a soothing oasis in their homes.”
Another evolving trend seems to be rug sizes. According to Vickers the 6’ 6’’ x 9’ 6’’ rug “has proven a great value for our customers. This size enables us to offer a larger rug (without increasing their cost) to one at least double the retail price of a regular 5’ x 8’ rug. This size maximizes material at production, which, in turn, also reduces waste, making it a great value on a number of levels.”
With wall-to-wall carpeting becoming passé, especially in warmer climates, Vickers says feel, quality, design, and price points are keys to making rugs more popular. She says, “Good value always excites customers.”
In Florida, many newer homes have marble or ceramic floors and are sold furnished. Area rugs, therefore, are popular purchases. For existing homes, accessories [like rugs] may come before new furniture is purchased.
Showcasing the product
To help determine what to show, Culpepper suggests using Pinterest for insight into the female customer’s thinking. “She’ll pick up on something she sees on social media and build a room around it. That is the digital world we live in today. Be aware of what moves her.”
According to Howard, it’s important to Sklar Furnishings “to be able to do the whole project for a client. We are a hybrid—a furniture retail space and a design resource, able to offer the whole package, including rugs. This is a great service for our clients.”
Not everyone is interested in using their own resources to sell rugs. Buying and displaying rugs “takes a level of expertise we don’t have,” said HFA member Eric Easter, CEO of Kittle’s Furniture. As a result, his store leases space to the International Rug Group (IRG). “We felt that, with the kind of investment it takes to do justice to the category, it would be better off leaving it to the experts.”
With rug sales representing about 1 percent of Badcock’s sales, Vickers says, “We believe that showing the right rug with the right living room or bedroom will increase attachment. A lot of our customers appreciate some of the design work we do, showing the rugs in the context of living room and bedroom settings. To more effectively take advantage of the space available, aside from showing rugs in these vignettes and room ensembles, a large number of stores also have rug racks.”
As “we do a big amount of design business, rugs are important to finishing off any job,” says Rick Howard, president of Sklar. “We display rugs with our furniture settings in a way a customer would use them in their homes.”
Pat Howard said Sklar used to have the standard rug rack seen in most retail stores, but realized carpets look different when they are hung versus when they lie flat. “When we needed more space in the store, we moved the racks and now show carpets only in room settings so the customer can see what it will really look like,” she says. Sklar also adopted a trend discovered in Europe and began to add rugs under the feet of their beds. In addition, their designers also use catalogs and ‘blankets’—good sized rug samples. Smaller pieces mounted on boards, Pat Howard says, “make them easier to see and a couple of our vendors actually made us a display that will fit into [our] size constraints.”
Aside from these display options, rugs are sometimes stacked in piles on the floor or rolled and packaged with display images, Added display area can sometimes be achieved by just removing or repositioning a rug rack.
“Display is definitely important in optimizing sales potential,” says Bartels, “and lighting is vital. Rugs absorb more light than furniture. You need to view rugs as you would art in a gallery, head on, not on an angle” even though display racks “take up a very large footprint in retail space.”
To provide a solution to this footprint problem, Rugs America unveiled a new display system at the High Point market that is on a sliding rail system, with rugs housed within a rack. This creates a viewing space for rugs to slide out of their housing to allow for a flat view. The display cases come in three sizes that complement the most commonly purchased sizes to maximize the space allocated. “This sliding rail system takes up only a set square footage,” explains Bartels “where one walks into the space.”
Sippel says his retail stores average 20 percent of their floor space dedicated to rugs, not necessarily including where rugs are displayed with furniture vignettes. “You sell what you show, so you need to devote space to the category. Light it properly and show the biggest rug you can. Also, make sure all colors, sizes and prices are on the display hang tag. It is much easier to order a smaller one from a larger sample. Because fluorescent lighting makes colors look different, use halogen lights, as close to natural light as you can get.”
He adds, “Profit per foot is generated by a rug department. It’s never a bad investment to give floor space to rug displays.”
Bartels also suggests the use of drop down LED track lighting to showcase rugs. She advises retailers not to overlook websites and catalogs as additional tools to let customers know what is available beyond the showroom. “You must offer something tangible as a back up method to let the consumer know there is more available than what is in the store.”
“Furniture stores have an inherent advantage over rug dealers and other retailers,” says Culpepper, “as they offer a whole home in one space.” However, “you must make it easy for [customers] to ‘get it.’ This is accomplished by how things are lit, how the product is presented and [by detailing] what it costs and how delivery works. Anything complicated should be eliminated.”
Overcoming challenges
Keeping the floor fresh can become an issue. Sklar donates some floor samples to Habitat for Humanity. “Even though we hold warehouse sales,” adds Howard, “rugs don’t seem to move like our other products do.”
“We have been enjoying great growth in our rug business over the past three years and have done really well at getting rid of a lot of discontinued rugs,” says Vickers, “and, by changing the ordering process to once a week, we were able to reduce a lot of distribution center inventory.”
However, Badcock’s greatest challenge is “stepping out of our ‘sweet spot,’ the price point and jumping our customer up to higher end goods,” says Vickers.
Showcase what you want to sell. “Just like when you sell a bedroom set and tell a client you also have mattresses,” Pat Howard advises, “make sure your customer knows you sell rugs.”
Bartels says, “If retailers want to see a boost in rug sales, they definitely should consider acknowledging this as a category rather than as an accessory.”
Shabtai echoed this sentiment, saying “You need to invest in the category full strength, using all your efforts.”
Featured Manufacturers
The Rug Market | therugmarket.com | 310-841-0111
Nourison | nourison.com | 800-223-1110
Rugs America | rugsamericacorp.com | 866-881-7847
Safavieh | safavieh.com | 516-945-1900
Mohawk Home/American Rug Craftsman | mohawkind.com | 800-241-4900
Sue Masaracchia-Roberts is a freelance writer and public relations consultant with more than 25 years of experience in writing and public relations. She can be reached at suemas@comcast.net.