Michael Buckley says the trade must stem misleading claims by competitors
The wake up call by Charles Trevor in your guest column is not the only one needed to develop growing market sectors for timber. Your own report on the Contract Flooring Show in the same issue states “Solid wood flooring is potentially a huge opportunity for timber merchants.” But the market is riddled with misleading advertising literature that the trade ignores at its peril – as demonstrated in the Ideal Home Show.
For example, Pergo‘s brochure describes the “natural touch… so that you can enjoy the soft smooth feel of a matt-finished oiled wood floor…” but fails to mention that it is not made of wood.
We all know that laminate is not wood, but we are not helping and the CFS demonstrated the confusion to which we are adding. “There is only solid or engineered in wood flooring” I was assured by some exhibitors. Yet one company at the show displayed its range of engineered real wood flooring as “laminate” and stoutly defended their definition.
Let’s wake up to the call, before any further consumers are lost to our substitute competitors. We need definitions and standards to stick to; we need the TTF to take a hard look with its lawyers at misleading promotion; and let’s work with the green movement to expose these non-wood products that are so environmentally unfriendly.
