Laminate Flooring has produced the most significant modification to the flooring industry in the last 25 years and continues to create tremendous adjustments and improvements over is normally hard surface area counter parts.
In Europe they have been savoring its features and benefits for many decades but not as laminate flooring as we realize today. Decorative laminate really was the origins and the start of what now is known as laminate flooring. The decorative laminate was widely used in kitchen counter tops and furniture. As the technology progressed in the counter best laminate industry https://groups.google.com/forum/?#!forum/flooringpros it obviously became obvious that with the countless amount of decors that may be created, may be created and applied to the floor.
The idea of laminate flooring was born. There were many technical challenges the first of which was how can you have a simple counter top laminate and create a flooring item, the flooring item will take far more abuse by being walked on and a use layer was created.
There has really been no stopping the technical tidal wave of improvements and suggestions that followed. Led primarily by the European countries laminate flooring gained even more market share year after year, no marketplace experienced such rapid growth as North America. Massive marketing promotions led by such brands as Pergo who are actually synonymous with laminate flooring introduced laminate flooring to the American Public in the first 1990s.
The actual history of laminate flooring is very short in THE UNITED STATES, because Pergo had achieved household recognition with the brand new flooring products Laminate flooring in THE UNITED STATES was widely referred to as "Pergo" floors again the synonymous status and the 'holy grail' of most brands.
In 2000 laminate flooring was a glue product; even so the market share within the flooring market in THE UNITED STATES continued to develop at a double digit pace. Many of the various other US traditional flooring manufacturers of floor covering and vinyl added laminate flooring to their portfolio of products.
Then so was created the private label laminate. Laminate flooring was simple to private label you simply changed the place or the product packaging and then that created another brand or type of flooring. This was especially useful for the hardwood and carpeting manufacturer's to can get on table with this new item. The traditional manufacturers of carpeting and hardwood have huge distribution systems and with their own branded line of flooring could actually place thousands of new flooring displays in a matter of a few months and new brands started appearing all over the place. This continued to drive the growth in america.
As traditional US producers of floor covering and vinyl presented themselves as laminate flooring drove sales, manufacturers, positioned laminate flooring displays and advertised the products.
Time Line in the US Market The next stages of growth were equally fast and I will break them straight down chronologically:
2000 was particularly painful for the Floor covering Manufactures in Dalton, Georgia they were completely blindsided by the aggressive advertising of laminate flooring against their carpet and that's where the laminate took most of their market talk about from touting the Laminate Flooring product seeing that hypo allergenic and showing close ups of carpeting mites and bugs did nothing at all to greatly help the domestic carpet producers.
All hard surface area flooring companies benefited. It was an exciting year for laminate flooring salesmen, even with terrible installation demonstrations and glue collectively flooring.
2001 Each year that preceded 2000 involved new, exciting and innovative changes to the laminate flooring market. The first change actually started in 2001 glue free laminate. This was first introduced with metallic clips on the trunk and during sales presentations as you tried to place it together you nearly needed a sledge hammer, it had been more difficult compared to the glue together technique. Not very popular but the concept was created all we required was the look and solution.
2002 A year later on the technology of glue-less laminate flooring arrived, introductions of glue-less laminates started again revolutionizing the floor covering industry. Unilin Sectors of Belgium presented Quick-Step in to the US market. Quick-Stage utilizes the patented Uniclic joint program. Several other manufacturers bought licenses to utilize the Uniclic joint technology thereby acknowledging Uniclic as the sector standard for Glue-less technology.
Still 95% of the USA market was using glue jointly laminate, it took yet more aggressive marketing which time mainly led simply by the home centers with names like 'Easy-Lock', 'Quick-Lock', 'Speedy-Lock', etc, to operate a vehicle the buyer towards the remarkably friendly D.I.Y. glue-much less laminate flooring ranges.
It was predicted in 2002 that purchase 2004 100% of the laminate flooring industry will be glue-less.
2003 This again became a dynamic year within the laminate flooring sector, sales of the merchandise per square foot continued to climb, but lawsuits in relation to patents over the locking system and who created and who could use it surfaced and would keep on for many years. Apart from the lawsuits the technology today pleased with the glue-less free install and now a particularly D.We.Y. friendly product focused on creating the merchandise to be as practical as hardwood as possible.
2004 This noticed some dramatic changes in the grade of the laminate product itself. The standard glue-free laminate flooring item was 7" wide by 54" long and it experienced a light 'ticking' effect, the panels went as well as glue-less free locking program. Mostly all of the items were imports and generally from Europe.
Towards the finish of 2004 laminate flooring factories (though not fully integrated and small in comparison to the European counterparts) started showing up across the USA. The bigger US manufacturers of carpets invested in laminate flooring services though they were not completely integrated (we are able to explore the importance of vertical integration afterwards). But this showed the US retailer and distributor that the merchandise was right here to and it was time to begin backing a horse.
This resulted in more innovation from overseas, the first was a wood grain texture - the laminate itself had heavier wood texture but it was random rather than too realistic in effect a modest upgrade, initially all manufacturers tried to market this improvement for $0.20SF to distribution however the actuality was their was no manufacturer cost increase to produce this texture - it had been simply a different pressure plate.
2005 The lawsuits over the locking system continued, incidentally the locking system 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 create an precise wood replicate of hardwood flooring continued and this led to a technology called 'Register and Emboss' or 'Embossed and Registered'. The idea of this is for the pattern of the oak for instance to be properly indented into the wood panel, so the grain of the Oak or Cherry was reasonable to the touch.
All the manufacturers quickly chased this technology, it required a comparatively simple process, make the right paper (décor design) and then have a press plate and the end of the manufacturing process to match that paper décor and then you possess the grain embossed.
Legal arguments over who developed that technology every ensued.
2006 The entire year of branding, distributors with 'own brand' tried to put themselves as manufacturers - one of the biggest being a vinyl producer tried to put themselves as marketplace leaders. Acquisitions also followed, Mohawk Sectors bought Unilin 'Quick-Step' in 2006. This also became the year of the home center business, where having your labeled item in one of the three main US house centers was the ultimate goal.
One of the major carpet producers and distributors with there http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=Augusta Georgia factory in Dalton gained the business enterprise with Home Depot. Pergo was well positioned with a vinyl manufacturer you had personal labeled their laminate range into Lowes Home Improvement Stores. Being a vinyl manufacturer and not a laminate producer create a major problem and an essential weakness as Lowes DO-IT-YOURSELF shifted their purchasing policy to 'only' buy factory direct.
A significant Swiss group and producer of laminate flooring also with the world's largest factory in Heiligengrabe, Germany had been quietly creating a factory in Barnwell, SC and at the right time were able to replace the vinyl manufacturer as supplier to Lowes Home Improvement.
2007 This really saw the legal issue on the locking program end as two legal systems emerged, one under Valinge Innovation and Uniclic Licensees each with approximately 100 companions paying royalties of roughly $0.04SF to $0.07SF. Licensees had been granted across the world and this led way to the re-emergence of Chinese laminate flooring.
In the mid 1990 China was one of the quickest growing laminate flooring market segments in the world and most of this was given by shipping and delivery in container from European countries, there were huge distributors in China 100 containers per month in proportions - or 2,400 pallets per month. It didn't take miss Chinese ingenuity to copy the process and buy 2001, China acquired a slew of factories (with large Government subsidies), some of this product came back as imports into the USA, but the legal issues with locking systems and potential freezes of share, cease and desist letter flying about scared off most distributors.
2008 China was back, this time around the large factories had license agreements and were legal, the machines that made the laminate flooring were from Europe and the merchandise quality was excellent.
There marketplace tactics were equally excellent, instead off going after the low end dog fighting marketplace of the 7mm and 8mm, they created a new look. A narrow plank and beveled the edges, this fresh narrow plank was around 5" wide when compared to standard 8" from Europe, the 5" wide was a one plank look and combined with bevel, register and embossing that they had created the best flooring.
This was it, everything during the last 25 years culminated to this point a flooring that had a narrow board appear 5 inches wide, beveled or micro beveled on all four a lifetime warranty, side and realistic textured surface.
The European's adjusted, but they were for once on the trunk foot, China rather than going after the reduced end market aimed high with a superior quality, the best quality laminate you could buy and they will make it and make it affordable to the US market.
2009 It is not clear where we are able to go from here, however the same was probably stated in 2005, laminate flooring is now so good in appearance that you cannot tell it aside from real hardwood, the only clue is the cost laminate flooring is far less expensive than real wood with an increase of color choices. 2009 will be a difficult economic 12 months therefore will 2010. Customers will concentrate on quality and price. Brand can be less essential as the buyer becomes more educated. The huge price fluctuations four sided beveled and narrow plank from one distributor priced at $5SF and from another $0.89SF and yet absolutely no complex difference in the product. Consumer will analysis and the gap will close.
Laminate flooring in the US market is a impressive story of growth and ingenuity. I do not really think that a couple of tough economic years will have much effect on its potential survival. It is an excellent product and with some work and analysis by the consumer you will get incredible value.