The Floor Store’s newest location caters to design professionals
The Floor Store’s newest location caters to design professionals
[Richmond, Calif.] The Floor Store, an upper end specialty flooring retailer, opened its 10th store in the San Francisco area to specifically serve decorators, designers, stagers and retail clients, according to CEO Larry Flick.
“All of our stores cater to a higher end demographic,” explained Flick. “Our newest store is a notch above our existing stores and was designed by Felix Medina. We’ve always stocked a significant amount of inventory but this is the first time we’ve stocked carpet and hard surface specific to the fashion trade.”
Every inch of the new The Floor Store location is something special beginning with the building itself — a Frank Lloyd Wright creation no less setting the tone for a design-forward experience.
The product assortment is fashion-forward with much of the hard and soft surfaces in stock.
Medina described his vision for the store as “really just going back a step in time with the idea of taking it forward with modern amenities. The showroom is not as big as the others but the look is amazing.” He explained that the store is aimed at bringing excitement back to the flooring showroom but also attracting that next generation of shoppers. “We want to go back to more exciting moments. My position is going into stores, remerchandising them to be more user friendly and to have an easier time getting past hurdles younger people have when seeing something for the first time — make it more fun and enjoyable.”
One modern touch to this new showroom, revealed Medina, “We have large screens on the wall flipping through photos of projects we’ve done — designers and their projects. It’s an ongoing dialogue. As you walk through, we are using it kind of like a visualizer. Not everyone can conceptualize so that helps out a lot. It’s a wonderful inspiration of collections you can put together — fabrics and tile and paints. Designers are going to love it.”
Products merchandised here also cater to the store’s unique audience. Explained Flick, “The product portfolio is fashion oriented. We’re stocking carpet from Couristan, Masland, Fabrica, Stanton, Kaleen, Karastan, Unique and many others. Presently, 32 percent of our sales are hardwood and we stock everything from American classics, European white oak and imported exotics from around the world. And for the first time, we’ll stock area rugs from Feizy, Capel and Tamarian, to name a few.”
The product portfolio indeed is the star of the showroom. “Many of the displays in the store are custom built and our philosophy is less is more with lots of open space,” he said, adding, “We’ve devoted 2,000 square feet of production space in the building to making custom area rugs and runners and have outfitted a van so we can offer in-home custom serging and binding.”
The showroom is designed to be appealing and attractive. And selections have been streamlined creating a nice flow throughout.
Agreed Medina, “When merchandising a store, we put all things out there and make it appealing and attractive. We are building a lot of our own cabinets, our own displays for area rug samples and some carpet ones. I want clients to feel the space — is it telling a story and what story is it telling? Once you start getting rid of overlapped items and streamline, it flows nicely. It’s all about details.”
Luxury Location
The store too is in an ideal location with a history to match its sophistication. Its location at 3535 Geary Street in San Francisco, Flick said, “is central to the finest zip codes in the city. It’s a great shopping street with lots of walk by traffic, local restaurants and specialty retailers,” he reported, adding, “The building is 14,000 square feet and has parking for 19 cars which is truly remarkable considering the city is notorious for its lack of parking.”
Technology plays its part in the store from this kiosk to wall screens that serve as project inspiration to help customers visualize their project.
What’s more, the showroom is located in a Frank Lloyd Wright building. “From the street, when you look at it, you expect that San Fran look but it’s so unique. When you walk in there is a built in dropdown ceiling, a very modern design,” shared Medina. “There is track lighting that looks different than traditional track lighting that goes around the perimeter. The front of it is all glass so when you walk by you see everything. We tried to stay with the symmetry of his logic and not disrupt his wonderful design.”
By Amy Rush-Imber
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