Old World Charm

It is notoriously difficult for manufacturers to build brand awareness and convince customers of their product’s quality in the carpet market. Modern consumers have a much clearer idea of the colour or style that they want than the manufacturer or construction. This is unfortunate for retailers, as profit margins are reduced when goods are commoditised, and unfortunate for consumers, who are forced to make a purchase without understanding the quality of rival products.
Several factors have contributed to the commoditisation of carpet over the last decades and years. Profit margins in the tufted sector are too tight to fund any significant advertising – save the important, but generalised, work of The Carpet Foundation.

Another has been the dominance of plain and neutral carpet in recent years. Robbed of pattern, and later even the colour pallet, to create unique designs, designers have had an increasingly challenging time. Colour was mortally, but not terminally, wounded by the snowballing popularity of ‘property porn’ (it’s in the Collins English Dictionary) home decoration shows. With the focus on raising property prices – coinciding with a national obsession – colour was seen as a value-destroying, spaciousness-reducing, sale-losing evil. Happily, the current BBC directors have vowed to cut the airtime dedicated to such shows. Coincidentally, a main former protagonist, Lawrence Llywellyn Bowen, has been advocating the use of coloured, patterned carpet. Combined with a slowing housing market, consumers will surely stop decorating the place where they live like a Barrett show home and start treating their home like an extension of their personality. Although people staying put for longer is not good for the carpet market in general, it will have the happy consequence of the re-emergence of colour.

Perhaps the most important factor, however, is the ability to demonstrate the quality of a product that, in part, takes years to become evident. In this relatively slack period defined by the connected problems of unprecedented levels of consumer debt and a stagnating housing market, consumers could be forgiven for seeking a relatively cheap flooring solution. Retailers should not forget that the consumer is making a substantial – and deferrable – purchase based on a limited experience of their product.

Consumer’s enthusiasm for quality products could be significantly increased by letting them know the skill and craftsmanship that is required to make traditional product. With a focus on life-cycle costs rather than upfront costs, an Axminster and Wilton carpet can be a worthwhile investment.
Retailers are always well advised to learn about the product that they sell, but particularly so in carpet; consumers are asked to pay significantly more on the basis on the examining a few square inches of a product.
In our consumer, designer label-driven society why should such a prominent area, with the potential to make a real style statement, be covered with a bland beige - to the point of being invisible - product. The re-emergence of the Burberry pattern – unfortunately high jacked by the much-lamented chav – has shown the latent demand for classic English style. The beauty being able to sell this type of patterned carpet is that consumers can not only be safe in the knowledge that their carpet is of the highest quality, but demonstrate their taste and appreciation of quality to anyone that enters their home.

Axminster Carpets are the epitome of classic, quality English carpetmaking. Their heritage is evident in every intricate patterned carpet that they produce, designs that are protected by copyright and can only be produced in the traditional Axminster method.

Robin Oakes, marketing director of Axminster Carpets stresses the exclusivity of their products and the importance of supporting the distribution of their products.
Robin Oaks: “Our main attributes are quality control and service, as well as the originality in our designs. We operate our own fleet of transport, and have done so for 35 years. Our drivers are representatives for the company; they are smart, tidy and efficient. Many drivers know their customers personally and have very good relationships with them. We only deliver to retailers - not homes and definitely not the wholesaler, which we have never dealt with.”

Axminster has a policy of protecting their retailers from destructive competition on a local area. Each area is well covered, but crucially, control over supply is maintained to ensure a fair margin on what is clearly a premium product. For this reason, wholesalers are not supplied and the company refuses to open new accounts on a weekly basis. This also allows the company to control sampling costs, on what may be an overly comprehensive range.

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