LVT prices: ‘Smart contractors soon spot best value products’
Simon James, marketing manager of Polyflor, says flooring contractors are becoming much more savvy about which manufacturers offer the best value LVT products:
I WAS recently reading a report on the UK commercial LVT market - mapping developments over the past six years. Many things we concur with, some we don’t - as is the nature of these things.
Having read the report and looking at our own LVT business, I was reminded of a piece I wrote for CFJ a few years back, noting how much the UK LVT market had changed in the decade or so that Polyflor had been involved at the time.
As far as we are concerned, the evolution of the LVT market in the last three years has probably been as significant as it was in the first 10.
IntheUKwespendalotofour time talking about safety flooring - the dominant product type in our market. But now it seems the phrase ‘inexorable rise’ is not only confined to safety, but could be tagged onto LVT as well.
We are seeing tremendous growth in sales - both in UK and overseas markets. This rapidly maturing sector is not the niche product group it once was and much of the perceived uniqueness of the LVT is disappearing as swiftly as the market is growing.
Design continues to be of obvious importance and this is the benefit that LVTs can deliver so inimitably. Generally the standard of designs is really high. Even some of the cheap end imports are getting better, or at least their cloning skills are.
But by and large it is not difficult to find a high quality LVT design at whatever level of spec you want. This has undoubtedly squeezed some manufacturers where the ability to command a price premium, that may even cause a banker to blush, is diminishing.
One of the most telling things is the polarisation of perception of value in the LVT market – something we have seen evidenced on multiple occasions.
Mainly contractors, but also architects, are starkly aware of which manufacturers are massively expensive and which offer best value. The positions in this are entrenching.
A contractor now has a good idea of what they might need to pay for a quality 0.7 or 0.5 or 0.3mm wearlayer LVT – this itself being a reflection of the maturity of the market.
As the LVT market gets bigger and more mainstream, it stops just being about the product too. Yes there is design choice, size format and obviously price, but we see increasingly that having LVT ranges designed to move smoothly through the chain from manufacturer, to distributor, to contractor with the same stock availability that you would expect from a smooth or safety floor, is achieving positive results.
Why in the longer term would there be any difference to the dominant route to market through distribution, as with most other flooring types?
There are some truly spectacular and huge ranges of LVT out there, many featuring 130 designs or more, which are achieving a miniscule market share in the UK.
There is a market for some larger ranges which appeal to the designer, offering endless choice for specifications with longer lead times and bigger budgets, but we are also seeing continued, substantial growth with some of the simpler ranges.
Those with a dozen woods and a dozen stones that feature excellent, mainstream commercial designs and can be stocked in depth and cater for the mass of the market. These are the ranges that keep it simple for all parties to work with and specify, a principle that needn't change just because of the nature of the product.
At times I think the LVT sector can get too focused on just the product. The fact is that LVT has arrived - and it is now customer service and support that will define the LVT winners in the coming years.
The thought of the marketing support costs for some of the more exclusive ranges must be incredible in relation to the volume and market share they deliver - even with high margins. A volume market needs volume ranges.
The support demanded for LVTs will continue to put pressure on manufacturers to provide as much resource to support an LVT as they may a safety product, but equally there is an additional requirement to communicate the design options too.
The eye watering sums we spent on photography for the Camaro re-launch are now looking like one of the best investments we made. The ability to create something that can sell off the page to the end user is certainly a lot more cost effective than endless rows of stands in a retail sector that is having to grapple with internet sales undermining the power of the showroom to convert a sale.
Things are looking very good for the LVT sector. Ever more mainstream, the market has repeatedly demonstrated that it can work very well with great products, major manufacturer support, excellent customer service, stock availability and sensible prices.
There may be more newcomers to the attractive LVT market, but successfully delivering on the attributes above will be the measure of which brands succeed and which remain trapped in the niche element of LVTs.
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