Will the flooring retail industry ever return to a responsible model of business activity?

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the top of Twin Peaks.

Will the flooring retail industry ever return to a responsible model of business activity?

I was asked by a major dealer in my local area to inspect one of their jobs.  They sold a homeowner a luxury vinyl plank floor. To be installed in their garage.  An unheated garage.  A garage that only gets occasional use. Using a floating floor installation method.

Really!?!

It is well known that any floating floor is finicky about environmental conditions.  Any floating floor can survive in any number of environmental conditions. It will not survive in conditions where the environmental conditions are subject to change, such as would be found in an unheated and seldom used garage.

The dealer’s position is simple:  your garage is unheated; you hardly ever use the space and when you do use the space you open the garage door. The floor failure is your fault.

Really!?!

I’m of a somewhat different opinion.

First of all, yes, I believe the excessive buckling of the floor to be related to a lack of temperature controls.  That floating floor doesn’t know if it’s coming or going most of the time, temperature swings from mid-70’s in the afternoons to low 40’s during the overnight hours.

But is that the fault of the owner?  Or is it an indication that a salesperson didn’t do his/her job at properly qualifying the owner and the space before making a product recommendation.

So I ask again: When will the flooring retail industry return to a responsible model of business activity?

How can you walk away from a sales recommendation that was wrong on so many levels?

How did this way of doing business become so normal?  I have my suspicions.

Back in the day (OK, I’m not yet a grampa but here comes my grampa rant), the “big box” stores were Sears, Wards, Penny’s, et al.  These stores sold more than just clothes and housewares: they sold furniture, appliances, tires, carpet, even tools and garden equipment. And when something went wrong with whatever they sold you, you called them, and they took care of it.

 Try that with today’s iteration of the big box store.  Problem with an appliance, or a floor.  Yeah, good luck with that.  The refrain is we don’t warrant the item, we only sell the item.  Here’s the phone number to the manufacturer.  Honest, I have stood face-to-face with big box store reps and listened to that very thing.  More than once.

I was standing in a short line at a bagel shop a few years ago (before the pandemic). I was third in line.  A lady was standing at the counter.  One person was behind the counter, with his back to all of us, doing something next to nothing, with a bagel.  After about 5 minutes, I asked the lady standing at the counter if she had been helped.  She said no, not yet.  Based on my timeline, she had been there for at least 5 minutes because I had been in line for 5 minutes and she was there before me.  So I yelled (politely), to no one in particular, “Hey, you got customers out here".  The young man behind the counter turned to see a line of about 6 people.  All over a sudden, a few individuals scurry out from the back room.  And I said, loudly again, “If you don’t tell them, they’ll think it’s OK”.

I’ve stopped going to that bagel shop.  Not enough people told them that bad service was not acceptable.