Finding a tile showroom in south Florida is about as difficult as finding sand on Miami Beach.
Independent and multi-store flooring specialty dealers compete with huge home improvement centers for business from homeowners who have little interest in shag carpeting and opt for the cooler comfort ceramic tile offers in the hot climate.
So when Teri Fioretti of Davie, Fla., was looking for floorcovering to install in three rooms of her newly remodeled home, she had a big selection to choose from.
She chose Lowes.
"Ive been doing pricing at about a dozen places," Fioretti said after an October visit to Lowes new store here. "I couldnt find good prices at a lot of the tile places. I didnt like the selection at Home Depot. But I found it here."
Fioretti, who was visiting the Lowes store with her year-old daughter and mother-in-law, Margaret McCaffrey, said that the stores associates were friendlier and more helpful than those at competitive outlets. The retailers prices on flooring were similar to Home Depots, but the selection was much better in Lowes, said Fioretti who, while remodeling her home, has done a lot of shopping at the Home Depot a block away from her house.
Fioretti was one of a dozen customers interviewed by NHCN while they shopped the Lowes store here, and they all seemed to be singing from the same music sheet about the attributes of that store vs. others in this hotly contested market.
For example, one woman said she came to Lowes specifically for its Laura Ashley brand of paint, which she had noticed the day before while shopping for flowers. This resident of Pembroke Pines said she didnt mind the 10-minute drive to Lowes because it had what she wanted and she found the store to be better laid-out than Home Depot.
Several people interviewed by NHCN said they came to Lowes to buy one product and ended up buying additional items from the stores home decor aisles.
Anna and Richard Oliveira of Sunrise stopped at the store on impulse to pick up a much needed, heavy-duty extension cord, but left with the perfect wallpaper border for their guest bathroom.
"Their stuff is nice," Anna said. "Its not really expensive, but its good quality."
"I was surprised to get this here," she added about the coral-colored, patterned border. "Now that I know they have all this stuff, Ill probably come back when its time to do our other bathroom."
Two couples, both from Miami, could more conveniently shop locally at Home Depot, which operates ii home centers and one Expo Design Center in Miami proper. But they chose instead to drive about 20 miles to the Lowes in Fort Lauderdale.
"If we have time, we prefer to come up here," said Philip Spataro, who was in the store with his wife Ivon. "We just came to look around. But there are different varieties, more of a choice here." Ivon observed that the Lowes seemed "brighter, more organized, more friendly and easier to find things."
Two other Miamians, Sylvia and Herb King, said that they found Lowes more convenient to shop because, said Herb, "its clean and it has everything." He works near the store and had anxiously awaited its opening this past summer. Its almost like walking into a department store," added Sylvia, complimenting the warehouse store.
The Kings recently had an addition built onto their home and referred their contractor to Lowes, having found that the retailer had very competitive pricing. The couple recommended Lowes for its housekeeping, product selection, wide aisles and adjacencies that made it easier to find products.
"Everybody who tries it comes back," Sylvia King said. "We tell all our friends about it. Even if its out of your way, you come back?
COPYRIGHT 2000 Lebhar-Friedman, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group