The UK’s largest flooring show is nearly upon us! If you are going to Harrogate, do please visit our Patron Members. They will be there, many with new products and certainly with new news.
With over 150 exhibitors in total, it promises to be a treat.
To for information please visit theflooringshow.com, or to register CLICK HERE.
To maintain TSI accreditation of our Code of Practice, every year we have to ‘audit’ 33% of our members. This takes the form of a ‘compliance’ questionnaire which comprises 12, simple, Yes or No questions. If we are concerned about any response, we will follow up and take relevant measures.
In addition to the questionnaire, we will also make up to 50 personal visits.
So, if you get a questionnaire from us, do please fill it in. It won’t take long and it helps the whole retail membership. Thank you.
Cold calling is, unfortunately, now routine for many industries and businesses. Recently, we have become aware that the Furniture Ombudsman has been contacting our members - and then following up with a rather aggressive letter. Let’s be clear about this - if you are a member of the Carpet Foundation you do NOT need to sign up to the Furniture Ombudsman. The Carpet Foundation Code of Practice contains an alternative dispute resolution mechanism (ADR).
Membership of the Furniture Ombudsman can range from a £100 up to £2500 depending on your turnover. However, and here is the catch, as a retailer you MUST pay £50 for every complaint brought by a consumer - whether you win it or lose it.
That, of course, is not the case for our retailers. So, if you do get called, stand firm and decline their kind offer.
The roll call of suppliers to the UK carpet industry who are now supporting the Carpet Foundation as Patron Members keeps growing.
Leading names such as Cavalier, Associated Weavers, Crucial Trading, Hugh Mackay, Kersaint Cobb, Kingsmead, Manx, Clarendon, Edel Telenzo, Thomas Witter and Whitestone Weavers have joined long standing supporters Brintons, Brockway, Cormar, Victoria, Ulster and the British Wool Marketing Board.
This is a massive boost for the Carpet Foundation and a ringing endorsement of our efforts. We estimate that we now have over 50% of the total value of the UK residential market supporting us. Their reasons for joining are varied – but all have one thing in common – they want to support the independent trade and they want the UK carpet industry to have a voice. So say all of us!
We work very closely with the media doing our best to ensure that carpet is featured regularly in magazines and newspapers. Indeed, we are recognised as the ‘one stop shop’ in the media for carpet. At the end of August, 52 journalists and freelancers, representing 16 magazines, joined us at our biennial Red Carpet Awards where we recognise ‘excellence’ in carpet journalism.
Our judging panel of Sophie Conran, Vanessa Brady OBE, Andrea Maflin and Louise Anton picked winners from 7 categories. The entries alone amounted to over £200,000 of publicity for carpet. Some of the work is truly magnificent. In the last 12 months alone, we have had 10 pages in Good Housekeeping, a double page spread in The Sunday Times and numerous features and mentions in other magazines.
Carpet has never had a higher profile.
Not everything can be done via the internet. Headlines such as ‘every business must look to the internet’ and ‘the high street is in terminal decline’ abound - but some sectors are still thriving.
Nearly everyone still goes shopping and shops like our independent retailers, stationers and restaurants will keep Britain’s high streets full of customer appeal and ensure that ‘proper’ shopping continues for a good while yet.
The best opportunities are still on the high street - it may not be as it once was but not everything can, or should, be bought online. Product knowledge and customer service still has a big part to play in retailing today - and Carpet Foundation retailers bear testimony to this. You are assured of sound, impartial advice, from people who care and who really know their product.
Long live the independent retailer!!
Before Christmas we had a coup with The Sunday Times running two whole pages on carpet – thanks to us.
We have, however, bettered that this month!
The current issue of Good Housekeeping has an amazing 10 whole pages given over to carpet. It is a quite stunning piece of work, highly original and beautifully styled and shot.
Good Housekeeping is the UK’s best selling lifestyle magazine with a circulation of nearly 400,000.
The stunning feature, which amounts to a very conservative £135,000 worth of media exposure, has an array of carpets and colours, many from our manufacturers. It also name checks our retailers as the people to buy carpet from with your Code of Practice.
Do go and buy a copy for your shop so you can see the feature in all its splendour.
Home ventilation gives rise to all sorts sorts of theories about how best to achieve it. It was disappointing today to watch a piece on BBC Breakfast this morning concerning how to ventilate one’s home - and the benefits of so doing. It was based on some research done in Scotland. The piece asserted that a home contains a harmful level of pollutants and that carpets, along with curtains and other soft furnishings, give off chemicals. This is NOT true.
All materials emit gasses from V.O.C’s. (Volatile Organic Compounds) but tests have shown that carpet emits significantly lower levels than other indoor finishes and furnishings and, as such,pose absolutely no threat to UK consumers.
Indeed, on the contrary, wool pile carpet absorbs common gaseous airborne pollutants and generally improves indoor air quality. Carpet also traps other particulate pollutants, deposited through foot traffic or airborne settlement, holding them in the pile of the carpet, away from its surface until they can be removed by regular, normal vacuum cleaning.
Rest assured, carpet IS the healthy flooring option.
Boho range in Hamilton design
Decorating with blue is very much an interior trend at the moment. And no wonder! Cool, calm, classic – you can depend on blue. It is one of the most versatile colours and a firm favourite for interiors thanks to its timeless appeal. It makes us feel calm and relaxed – or vibrant and energised! Its palette ranges from delicate powdery shades to deep inky tones, rich aqua, turquoise and navy.
It is also a very versatile shade that works with neutrals, dusky pinks, sage greens, purples and yellows – almost any colour in fact.
Associated with calm and serenity, blue is a ‘stress buster’. Evocative of the freshness of the sea, sky and summer, it oozes tranquillity. And do you know why that is? It is to do with how spectrums of light hit the retina. So, a few words on blue as an interior choice - and a science lesson!
Brintons Bell Twist carpet in Windermere Blue
A surge in demand for new carpets and sofas pushed retail sales to a 4 month high in January according to latest BRC/KPMG report.
UK inflation rose to a 12 month high in January and is now at the same level as January 2015.
Data from the Office of National Statistics shows that unemployment is at its lowest level for a decade.
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