Laminate Flooring has made the most significant change to the flooring industry in the last 25 years and continues to make grand changes and improvements over is hard outside counter parts.
In Europe they have been enjoying its features and benefits for some decades but not as laminate flooring as we know today. Decorative laminate was in fact the origins and the starting of what now is known as laminate flooring. The Decorative laminate was widely used in kitchen counter tops and furniture. As the technology evolved in the counter top laminate industry it clearly became apparent that with the endless whole of decors that could be created, could also be created and used on the floor.
LOWES
The idea of laminate flooring was born. There have been many technical challenges the first of which was how can you take a uncomplicated counter top laminate and generate a flooring product, the flooring stock will take far more abuse by being walked on and a wear layer was created.
There has in fact been no stopping the technical tidal wave of improvements and ideas that followed. Led mainly by the European countries laminate flooring gained more market share year after year, no market experienced such rapid growth as North America. Weighty marketing campaigns led by such brands as Pergo who are now synonymous with laminate flooring introduced laminate flooring to the American group in the early 1990s.
The actual history of laminate flooring is quite short in North America, because Pergo had achieved household recognition with the new flooring products Laminate flooring in North America was widely referred to as "Pergo" floors again the synonymous status and the 'holy grail' of all brands.
In 2000 laminate flooring was a glue product; even so the market share within the flooring industry in North America continued to grow at a double digit pace. Many of the other Us former floor outside manufacturers of rug and vinyl added laminate flooring to their briefcase of products.
Then so was born the incommunicable label laminate. Laminate flooring was easy to incommunicable label you simply changed the insert or the packaging and then that created someone else brand or line of flooring. This was especially useful for the hardwood and rug manufacturer's to get on board with this new product. The former manufacturers of rug and hardwood have huge distribution networks and with their own branded line of flooring were able to place thousands of new flooring displays in a matter of months and new brands started appearing everywhere. This continued to drive the growth in the Usa.
As former Us manufacturers of rug and vinyl presented themselves as laminate flooring manufacturers, advertised the products, settled laminate flooring displays and drove sales.
Time Line in the Us market The next stages of growth were equally fast and I will break them down chronologically:
2000 was particularly painful for the rug industry in Dalton, Georgia they were fully blindsided by the aggressive marketing of laminate flooring against their rug and that is where the laminate took most of their market share from touting the Laminate Flooring stock as hypo allergenic and showing close ups of rug mites and bugs did nothing to help the domestic rug manufacturers.
All hard outside flooring associates benefited. It was an provocative year for laminate flooring salesmen, even with terrible premise demonstrations and glue together flooring.
2001 Every year that preceded 2000 involved new, provocative and innovative changes to the laminate flooring market. The first change in fact started in 2001 glue free laminate. This was first introduced with metal clips on the back and while sales presentations as you tried to put it together you almost needed a sledge hammer, it was more difficult than the glue together method. Not very popular but the understanding was created all we needed was the institute and solution.
2002 A year later the technology of glue-less laminate flooring arrived, introductions of glue-less laminates began again revolutionizing the floor outside industry. Unilin Industries of Belgium introduced Quick-Step into the Us market. Quick-Step utilizes the patented Uniclic joint system. some other manufacturers bought licenses to use the Uniclic joint technology thereby acknowledging Uniclic as the industry appropriate for Glue-less technology.
Still 95% of the Usa market was using glue together laminate, it took yet more aggressive marketing and this time mainly led by the home centers with names like 'Easy-Lock', 'Quick-Lock', 'Speedy-Lock', etc, to drive the buyer towards the exceptionally friendly D.I.Y. Glue-less laminate flooring ranges.
It was expected in 2002 that buy 2004 100% of the laminate flooring industry will be glue-less.
2003 This again proved to be a dynamic year within the laminate flooring industry, sales of the stock per quadrate foot continued to climb, but lawsuits with regards to patents over the locking ideas and who created and who could use it surfaced and would continue on for many years. Aside from the lawsuits the technology now happy with the glue-less free install and now a particularly D.I.Y. friendly stock focused on creating the stock to be as realistic as hardwood as possible.
2004 This saw some dramatic changes in the potential of the laminate stock itself. The appropriate glue-free laminate flooring stock was 7" wide by 54" long and it had a light 'ticking' effect, the panels went together with glue-less free locking system. Mostly all of the products were imports and mainly from Europe.
Towards the end of 2004 laminate flooring factories (though not fully integrated and small in comparison to the European counterparts) started appearing across the Usa. The larger Us manufacturers of carpets invested in laminate flooring facilities though they were not fully integrated (we can examine the point of vertical integration later). But this showed the Us retailer and distributor that the stock was here to and it was time to start backing a horse.
This led to more innovation from overseas, the first was a wood grain texture - the laminate itself had heavier wood texture but it was random and not too realistic in consequent a modest upgrade, at first all manufacturers tried to sell this improvement for .20Sf to distribution but the reality was their was no manufacturer cost growth to produce this texture - it was just a separate pressure plate.
2005 The lawsuits over the locking ideas continued, incidentally the locking ideas lawsuit is not about the easy angle long joint of the laminate flooring, all the law suits focus on the end locking joint.
The chase to generate an exact wood replicate of hardwood flooring continued and this led to a technology called 'Register and Emboss' or 'Embossed and Registered'. The idea of this was for the pattern of the oak for example to be perfectly indented into the wood panel, so the grain of the Oak or Cherry was realistic to the touch.
All the manufacturers soon chased this technology, it required a relatively uncomplicated process, generate the precise paper (décor pattern) and then have a press plate and the end of the manufacturing process to match that paper décor and then you have the grain embossed.
Legal arguments over who came up with that technology all ensued.
2006 The year of branding, distributors with 'own brand' tried to position themselves as manufacturers - one of the biggest being a vinyl manufacturer tried to position themselves as market leaders. Acquisitions also followed, Mohawk Industries bought Unilin 'Quick-Step' in 2006. This also became the year of the home center business, where having your labeled stock in one of the three main Us home centers was the ultimate goal.
One of the major rug manufacturers and distributors with there premise in Dalton gained the enterprise with Home Depot. Pergo was well positioned with a vinyl manufacturer you had incommunicable labeled their laminate line into Lowes Home improvement Stores. Being a vinyl manufacturer and not a laminate manufacturer generate a major problem and a crucial weakness as Lowes Home improvement shifted their purchasing policy to 'only' buy premise direct.
A major Swiss group and manufacturer of laminate flooring also with the world's largest premise in Heiligengrabe, Germany had been quietly construction a premise in Barnwell, Sc and at the right time were able to replace the vinyl manufacturer as provider to Lowes Home Improvement.
2007 This in fact saw the legal issue on the locking ideas end as two legal systems emerged, one under Valinge Innovation and Uniclic Licensees each with almost 100 partners paying royalties of almost .04Sf to .07Sf. Licensees were granted all over the world and this led way to the re-emergence of Chinese laminate flooring.
In the mid 1990 China was one of the fastest growing laminate flooring markets in the world and most of this was supplied by shipping in box from Europe, there were huge distributors in China 100 packaging a month in size - or 2,400 pallets a month. It did not take long for Chinese ingenuity to copy the process and buy 2001, China had a slew of factories (with large Government subsidies), some of this stock came back as imports in to the Usa, but the legal issues with locking systems and possible freezes of stock, cease and halt letter flying about scared off most distributors.
2008 China was back, this time the large factories had license agreements and were legal, the machines that made the laminate flooring were from Europe and the stock potential was excellent.
There market tactics were equally excellent, instead off going after the low end dog fighting market of the 7mm and 8mm, they created a new look. A narrow plank and beveled the edges, this new narrow plank was almost 5" wide compared to the appropriate 8" from Europe, the 5" wide was a one plank look and combined with the bevel, register and embossing they had created the ultimate flooring.
This was it, all things over the last 25 years culminated to this point a flooring that had a narrow board look 5 inches wide, beveled or micro beveled on all four side, realistic textured outside and a lifetime warranty.
The European's adjusted, but they were for once on the back foot, China instead of going after the low end market aimed high with a high quality, the top potential laminate you could buy and they could make it and make it affordable to the Us market.
2009 It is not clear where we can go from here, but the same was probably said in 2005, laminate flooring is now so good in appearance that you cannot tell it apart from real hardwood, the only clue is the price laminate flooring is far less high-priced than real wood with more color choices. 2009 will be a difficult economic year and so will 2010. Consumers will focus on potential and price. Brand will become less foremost as the buyer becomes more educated. The huge price fluctuations four sided beveled and narrow plank from one distributor priced at Sf and from someone else .89Sf and yet in fact no technical variation in the product. buyer will investigate and the gap will close.
Laminate flooring in the Us market is a mighty story of growth and ingenuity. I do not think that a integrate of tough economic years will have much impact on its hereafter survival. It is an exquisite stock and with some exertion and investigate by the buyer you can get expected value.
Laminate Flooring History and Timeline in the Us shop LOWES
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