CarpetOne.com Raises the Bar

Dallas, TX, March 9, 2007--Two months after their e-commerce site went live to consumers, Carpet One Floor & Home is leading the industry, becoming the first floor covering retailer to sell installed flooring to consumers through the Internet. On the new site, consumers can gain valuable flooring knowledge, search for the perfect product for their home, order product samples and even request that a sales professional visits their house. The revamped website is also enhancing business for Carpet One Floor & Home members. The new CarpetOne.com filters leads to members from consumers in their local areas and allows members to display localized pricing. Each member can choose the specific products and prices they want to display to consumers in their local market. Since the site launched in January 2007, Carpet One Floor & Home has doubled the rate at which site visitors make contact with the store. Carpet One Floor & Home’s recent consumer research showed an extremely positive response to the new e-commerce site. They found that 78% of consumers would be likely to make a purchase from an online source that also had storefronts nationally. More importantly, 76% of site visitors got a positive impression of Carpet One Floor & Home from the website and 87% said they would likely visit a store after gathering information online. Overall, more than three quarters of the consumers who tested the site were quickly engaged with the site and felt that it offered valuable information that would help them to make a purchase. “We are thrilled with the way consumers are reacting to the new CarpetOne.com,” said Carpet One Floor & Home President Evan Hackel. “This initiative is a critical part of our Five-Year Plan, so we are happy to see that members are benefiting from our presence on the Web. We plan to continually update the site so that we stay on the cutting-edge of e-commerce trends.” In the upcoming months, the company will launch an e-marketing plan designed to increase awareness for Carpet One Floor & Home online and drive traffic to CarpetOne.com. “It is becoming more and more important for retailers to market and sell their products online,” added Stan Langer, Vice President of Marketing & Advertising at Carpet One Floor & Home. “Our goal is to build brand awareness for Carpet One Floor & Home with the millions of consumers who now shop and compare products almost exclusively on their home computers. We’re confident that the new site will also drive more traffic into stores and increase requests for in-home consultations.” With the new e-commerce site, Carpet One Floor & Home has simplified the process of purchasing floor covering. Customers can now shop in-store, online or in-home, after researching the flooring options on the website. The site is organized logically, similar to a Carpet One Floor & Home showroom, making product research easier. For the customer who knows what type of style or atmosphere she’s looking for, but not specifically the flooring, products are arranged by Carpet One Floor & Home’s SelectAFloor categories. Visitors who know exactly what they’re looking for can also search by a range of categories, including surface type, color, price, species and thickness. And finally, the new CarpetOne.com will offer another feature that is not available anywhere else: the site’s visualization tool allows customers to actually see what their new flooring will look like in their home, simply by uploading a photo of the room they’re shopping for. With the launch of the new e-commerce site this past January, Carpet One Floor & Home has taken a big step in achieving one of the key initiatives in their Five-Year Plan.