Where To Find Manufacturer Recommended Floor Care Products
Residential Flooring Manufacturers devote many dollars to developing floor care and maintenance products specific to the floor(s) they produce. These products are carefully formulated, for each type of flooring the manufacturer produces to leave the floor residue-free, maintain the integrity of the floor’s surface finish without compromising slip resistance or shine and it needs to be the safest possible for people, pets and the environment. Important? You bet!
Using the Manufacturer Recommended floor care & maintenance products on your new floor, in accordance with Manufacturer guidelines, will keep the floor you purchased looking great and it will uphold the Warranty on your floor if you should have a claim. The big question has long been, “Where can I buy the product recommended by the Manufacturer?”
The flooring industry has a missing link when it comes to selling floor care & maintenance products. The flooring industry’s distribution chain, that has been in place for as long as I can remember, is from Manufacturer to Distributor to Retailer. This works like a well-oiled machine for flooring materials. Distributors buy in bulk from Manufacturers and the Retailers order from their Distributor to manage the amount of material they need to inventory. Since this works for flooring materials, it should also work for floor care & maintenance products, right? Wrong.
More often than not, Retailers don’t carry the care & maintenance products that Manufacturers require to uphold their flooring Warranties. The truth is that they likely did when they first brought on the line of flooring because the Manufacturer probably had a spiffy display that was offered for the Care & Maintenance Products as part of their kick-off package however, when that initial supply was depleted, they never replenished the stock. This happens for several reasons.
Flooring Retailers & Distributors have their focus on flooring materials, not care & maintenance products, because flooring material is their primary business and where most of their profits are generated. When they do try to track down the care & maintenance products they find that the Manufacturer is also more focused on the flooring products and they are not always able to obtain the care & maintenance products because their Distributor has trouble procuring them from the Manufacturer. You can see this doesn’t go very far in getting the products to the End Users.
You won’t find the Manufacturer Recommended Floor Care Products in Big box stores either because there is not enough in volume sales for them. Each flooring product in the marketplace has approximately 3 floor care product sku’s (each item has a unique sku) associated with it. Multiply this by the hundreds of flooring products out there and the total equals too many different products for a big box store that focuses on high volume and low cost.
The result- Customers, who buy new floors, become frustrated and may turn to easily available generic floor care products to maintain their new floor. This often backfires because the generic product may leave a cloudy film, etch the finish, create too much moisture, stain or dull the original shine. Depending on the product- cleaner, polish, stain remover, refresher, etc- the result of the generic product may or may not be reversible. Situations like this often wind up as Claims filed with the Manufacturer because the Customer believes the floor to be defective. They rarely see a Claim settle in their favor if they haven’t followed the Manufacturer’s care & maintenance guidelines. If only they could find the floor care products recommended by the Manufacturer to uphold their warranty…
This is where the specialty e-store fills the missing link. 1877Floorguy.com carries over 1000 sku’s, specializing in Manufacturer recommended Floor Care & Maintenance Products. This website has such a large selection of Manufacturers and Products, organized by type of floor and by Manufacturer, that you will likely find the exact item you are looking for along with helpful tips or advise on how to use it. If you don’t find the answer on the website, call 1-877-Floorguy and one of the staff members, each has been doing this for 8+ years, will answer your questions and guide you with expertise. If you don’t see the product you’re looking for, ask! because 1877Floorguy.com is adding new products all the time. Best of all, most products are in stock and ready to ship next business day.
Hopefully more Retailers will recognize that they can guide their Customers to 1877Floorguy.com to buy maintenance & care products for their new floor. This will make their Customers happy and they’ll go back to that Retailer again for new floors. We’ll never compete for the flooring materials business because our specialty is the products to keep floors clean and maintained.
It has taken some convincing, within the industry, but Manufacturers are beginning to see the importance of breaking the supply chain mold to better serve the end users.