An Internet View of Mohawk Acquiring Pergo Laminate Flooring

Posted on November 29, 2012 by

Most floorinng industry professionals have recently read, both online and in offline print,  the news about Mohawk’s announcement acquiring Pergo.  (Although it might be big news in the flooring industry it didn’t make a peep in the social media channels - not surprising too me either. )

But even if there wasn’t a lot of noise across the Internet I decided to use the Internet to see how this acquisition might be a benefit to Mohawk Industries if it is approved in the first quarter of 2013. So I spent about 25 minutes early this morning doing some online reseach and making some screen captures to use on this blog post to look further into the Pergo laminate flooring acquistion by Mohawk Industries.

A great online search trending tool is Google’s Trends, which shows search trends for specific terms over time. I chose several relevant terms to see the trends from 2004 to present in the USA only. The first graph is for “laminate flooring” from 2004 to present in the United States only. Laminate flooring has been fairly stable as far as searches on Google over time. Especially when you think of the recession and big down turn in the home building industries..

Google Trends for Laminate Flooring Searches

The new 3 graphs are pretty self explanatory for search trends: “Mohawk laminate flooring”, “Pergo laminate flooring” and “Quick Step laminate flooring”.which will all be soon part of Mohawk Industries if the final Pergo acquisition goes through the first part of 2013.

Google Search Trends for Mohawk Laminate Flooring

Google Search Trends for Mohawk Laminate Flooring

Google Search Trends for Pergo Laminate Flooring

Google Search Trends for Pergo Laminate Flooring

Google Search Trends for QuickStep Laminate Flooring

Google Search Trends for QuickStep Laminate Flooring

In the Nov. 5/12 issue of Floor Covering Weekly it is stated that: “Pergo-branded products will continue to be driven through the home center channel”. So does this move benefit Mohawk Industries? Absolutely!! See my screen captures below and it should be obvious why this was another smart move by Mohawk Industries.

Google Search Trends for Home Depot Laminate Flooring

Google Search Trends for Home Depot Laminate Flooring

Add to this from Home Depot’s website the number of Pergo SKUs….

Laminate Flooring brands on Home Depot website

Laminate Flooring brands on Home Depot website

And here is Lowes laminate flooring trends…

Google Search Trends for Lowes laminate flooring

Google Search Trends for Lowes laminate flooring

Add to this from Lowe’s website the number of Pergo SKUs….

laminate flooring brands on Lowes website

laminate flooring brands on Lowes website

Lastly, dont forget about Amazon, the largest online dot.com retailer who is also selling Pergo. Will this lead to more Mohawk products on Amazon? Time will tell.

Pergo laminate flooring on Amazon

Pergo laminate flooring on Amazon

It sure looks like Mohawk is now positioned to be gorilla in the laminate flooring category. Looking back about 30 years ago who would have thought Pergo, the hot new flooring product category back then would eventually be acquired by a carpet manufacturer- Mohawk Industries. :-)

Google+ Local, More Confusion For Small Businesses

Posted on June 5, 2012 by

For those of you who still don’t know, Google created quite a while ago their own social network called Google+. Google+ allowed people and businesses to create Circles of friends, post text, videos and photos, do live video chats, play games and much more. For example: click here to see my Webstream Dynamics Google+ page.

Most businesses probably are aware of Google Places, which began as Google Local and changed its name to Google Places. This is suppose to be Google’s answer to help local businesses getting found in Google search results when people are searching for local businesses. Google even went around the country last year promoting free Google Places listings for all small businesses and free mini-websites if you didn’t have an existing website.

As of the end of May Google has now incorporated Google Places into Google+ and changed the name to Google+ Local. This is suppose to help build a social network around your local business allowing customers and businesses to engage in online conversations and reviews. Along with this change local business listings in Google have taken on a whole new look. Below is an example of a local listing I helped created for a client several months ago under Google Places / Google Maps. Some of the elements are highlighted in yellow because I used this snapshot in a recent retailer seminar I did about Google Places and web marketing. I guess I have to change this slide now. :-) .

Google Places listing

Old Google Places listing

Below is a snapshot of their new Google+ Local listing. Notice how the elements are laid out much differently.

Google+ Local Listing

Google+ Local Listing

Google also changed the how reviews are rated. Individual reviews go from 0-3 and then all review ratings are averaged and multiplied by 10. Some types of businesses are rated in multiple categories, like restaurants. See how it works here. Below is my quick screen snapshot of the overall new Google rating scales…

Google+ Local Rating Scale

Google+ Local Rating Scale

Something I find confusing and so will others is when i click on Manage This Page it takes me to the old Google Places login screen and has the same layout,etc. as before. I cannot really change anything but the content of the page, as before. At the same time, if I login into Google+ I do not see my local business listing as part of my Google+ account, even though I use the same login credentials for both accounts.

There are a lot more changes to this then I mentioned above. Click here for an in depth article about all the changes Google has implemented so far. By the way, there are more changes to come.

Below is a Google+ Local video to help confuse you even more if you have never had a Google+ Account.

In the end, I am sure those who take the time to learn and embrace the new Google+ Local system will be rewarded with better search engine positioning and more potential customers. The major hurdle for Google will be to simplify this entire process so the average small business owner, who is both time-strapped and not tech-savvy will be able to understand and use the new Google+ Local. Time will tell if Google can make this happen.

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Are Retailers Dropping The Ball Online?

Posted on May 1, 2012 by

It use to be (and in some cases may still be) that retailers spent thousands of dollars having an ad listing in multiple YellowPage printed books for the surrounding towns/cities. When the Internet took off many retailers started to drop their YellowPage listings because they saw the Internet (Google) as the new YellowPages. For the most part they were correct.

But what I see so often are retailers thinking I have a website that is all I need. Unfortunately, that doesn’t guarantee you will show up on page #1 of the search results for any of the products and services you sell. Especially for those other cities and towns you also service but don’t have a physical location in.

Below is an snapshot of a Google Search using “Appleton carpet stores”. First, I know there are local specialty carpet stores in Appleton that don’t appear at all on this page. There are also specialty carpet stores just outside of Appleton that also don’t appear on this page. Remember, this is the NEW YELLOWPAGES!

What also you should notice below is how dominate Lowes and Home Depot are in the local search results. Home Depot even has a subscribe to their newsletter right in the Google search results to help capture local consumers’ email addresses!

Local retailers need to wake up and realize they need to do a better job marketing their stores online to their local targeted shoppers. Just because you have a website doesn’t mean you don’t have to spend time and some money incorporating online marketing for your store.

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Finding local buyers through the online local classifieds

Posted on March 27, 2012 by

One thing with the Internet you have a lot of different ways you can reach your local audience. Take for example, selling your roll ends and remnants, or odd lot cartons left over form a job. Rather than waiting for someone to come into your store you can reach out to them for FREE.

Here are a couple ideas for you. First, take a digital photo of the items you want to sell and write a short decription about each item. Now find your local Craigslist, create an account and post the details there. I know several retailers who are selling merchandise and other products on Craigslist, which is nothing more than a local classifieds website with a fair amount of local traffic. Second, you can also create a page on your website and promote your local in-store remnants, odd-lots, etc. Both of these methods are free and just takes a little of your time.

We all know many consumers are looking for a great deal in flooring and are frequently visiting websites like Craigslist and other online local classifieds to seek out deals. If times are slow in your stores maybe a web-savvy store saleperson posting specials with your name, phone, etc can capture sales and earn more commissions, as well as sell the add-ons and trade-ups. It sure beats sitting there all day bored. Bottom-line, get creative and leverage the Internet to extend your marketing reach.

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Is Your SEO Provider Really Helping?

Posted on March 6, 2012 by

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about more than increasing the number of visitors to your website. It should be about increasing the number of targeted buyers within your market area and that is where the rubber meets the road. So how do we determine whether our SEO provider is actually helping generate the right traffic to our website?

If you don’t have Google Analytics setup for your website than you are shooting in the dark. Google Analytics is FREE and only takes a couple minutes to install. This allows you to see everything from what pages are most viewed to how people found your website and much more. You can even see where they came from based on their Internet footprint. For example: a store in Boston area can see how many website visitors came to their website from the Boston area and what keywords they used if they came from a search engine. Now wouldn’t that be helpful to know?

Another thing I like to do is use sort sort of website promotion. The promotion is only available online, so you can see how many website visitors walk in asking about the promotion they saw on your website. This is also a way to measure if your Facebook page is really generating leads too.

I recently did this with a customer and I posted the web-only promotion on a late Thursday afternoon. Right after the store opened on Friday morning 2 people walked in asking about the promotion they saw on the website. Viola! We got a measureable result.

If you are spending money to have someone do monthly SEO updates don’t take it for granted that you are getting what you are paying for. Make sure you have the ability to see Google Analytics reports whenever you want to and try some website only promotions occasionally to see if your targeted audience is really on your website and engaged.

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