The True Price of Special Ordering Flooring
Big box home improvement stores have a secret: They don’t really have much flooring in stock. Sure, they have thousands and thousands of samples, but if you want anything beyond the basics, chances are you’re going to hear that it needs to be special ordered. What does that really mean?
The order has to go through multiple people, first of all. Watch this: your order needs to move from the sales clerk who takes your order to his/her ordering department, then to the chain’s purchasing department, then it moves to the manufacturer’s order desk, inventory control, shipping and receiving, cutting or fulfillment; then it is loaded with a driver, transferred to a regional distribution center, transferred a second (and possibly third) time before it eventually arrives at the store. Then store personnel get involved: receiving, inventory handlers, schedulers, warehouse operations (who stage your shipment) and eventually the installation crew. Here’s the kicker: all of those touch points add up to much higher prices for special orders, to say nothing of the extra time. Anyone who’s special ordered before knows the wait times can stretch from weeks into months, because that inventory often has to be shipped from overseas.
At Tish Flooring, we keep it simple. First, 90% of our core products can be installed within 3-5 days of ordering. Even if we don’t have them in stock in our Indianapolis warehouse, most of our distribution warehouse are within 3 hours of Indianapolis, so we get shipments fast – sometimes within 24 hours!
But if we do need to place a special order that will take a little longer, there are some key differences. Your special order won’t be touch by nearly as many people at Tish. Your Project Manager stays in control of the process from start to finish: he or she places the order directly with the mill – if there is a delay, you’ll be informed right away. A day or two before installation you’ll receive a call from our Installation Department confirming your date and making sure you have the information you need. There are no middle men; we get your product to you quickly and efficiently and this is reflected in our lower prices. We urge first-time flooring shoppers to take “The Tish Challenge” in our marketing pieces, recommending that they get competitive quotes from the big boxes in addition to our quote – those big companies with stores in Indianapolis hope shoppers won’t take the time to do this. Conversely, we highly recommend it.
As always, don’t assume that because big box stores advertise hard-to-believe offers such as “$49 Installation For Your Whole House!” that it’s a good, straightforward deal. Such offers are usually misleading – and that’s where Tish comes in. Allow us to provide you a different experience altogether. We’ll help you find the right flooring at a sharp price point that will likely be 15%, 25%, below the big boxes – or more. Want to schedule your free, in-home consultation today? Contact us at 317-879-TISH (8474).
