As this website prepares to publish, I would like to reflect on a couple of issues of site architecture that connect directly to how we do business.
The first is price transparency. I feel this is fundamental to being open and direct with our customers. I find it puzzling that one can wander literally through the websites of dozens of wood flooring manufacturers and never encounter a price for anything. I understand that some manufacturers distribute through a retail network and prefer for retailers to set their own prices. Still, why wouldn’t you list a manufacturer’s suggested retail price that would give customers an idea if a product were even close to fitting their budget? And as a consumer, it remains in the back of my mind that many salesmen don’t offer a price until they have elicited an idea of how much I want to spend– much as doctors suspect (rightly) that tradesmen charge them higher prices because they can theoretically afford it.
This is not how we do business. On this site virtually every product has a price attached to it. We constantly review pricing as raw material costs change, and you will never hear from us that the “real” price is different from the website, because we “didn’t get around” to updating the site. We want you to be able to qualify our products as within your budget before you call us. That saves both of us time, and time is one commodity that doesn’t increase in quantity in life.
Transparency. It’s so simple.
