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Shop At Home
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When you get home you get to see whether you made the right choice in color, see how it looks against other furnishings and wall colors, and then hike back to the showroom(s) to return the samples. If you didn't get it right the first time (colors don't match, texture seems wrong, etc.), you start the process all over again.
Shop-at-home carpet and flooring services do all the running around for you. They'll drive to your home with vans full of samples, be they carpet, hardwood, tile, cork or any combination, depending on what they carry. All you do is choose the samples.
Benefits
Let's face it. The thought of having the product come to you instead of having to spend the time and gas driving around town does have its upsides. Consider these benefits to in-home carpet or floor shopping:
- You see how the samples look where they might be installed. You can quickly see how a carpet color matches up with adjacent furnishings, window tapestries, throw pillows and anything else in the area. You can see it under your home's lighting conditions too (a showroom's lighting might show very different results than your living room).
- The salesperson can take measurements of your room(s) right then and there in order to give you an accurate estimate. No need to have someone come at a later date to measure like you'd have to do if you went to the showroom to shop.
- You avoid multiple trips to showrooms to exchange samples if the first ones didn't look right once you got home.
- Services that don't have retail showrooms may have lower overhead and charge less than their counterparts who do.
- Visits are free, scheduled at your convenience and you save time and gas.
If there are any drawbacks to the process it's that your product choices are limited by what the shop-at-home service offers. In many cases the selection will include a range of name-brands. You can usually see what products/brands they offer ahead of time by checking their website.
It might pay dividends to do some homework ahead of time so that you're versed on the products you'll be shown. You can check out our flooring page to learn more about the various types of floor coverings.
Where To Find Shop-At-Home Carpet and Flooring Services
There are a couple of sources for finding shop-at-home flooring specialists that service your area. They include an online internet search and your local phone book.
Also keep in mind that there are a few national and franchise providers that stretch across the U.S. and Canada as well as local providers, serving only a city or small regional area.
You can search online by inputting the keyword "shop at home carpet and flooring" or a similar search term (you don't need the quotation marks). To narrow your search to your local area add "+(your city)" to the search term (make sure to include the "plus" sign). For example, "shop at home carpet +Boston" will bring back services in the Boston region.
A couple of services with a broader reach include:
- Empire Today - www.empiretoday.com
- Carpet Network - www.carpetnetwork.com
A Few Things To Consider
Like with any service you consider giving your business to it pays to be knowledgeable about the company and how they perform. From that standpoint the process of buying is no different than if you walked into a flooring showroom yourself and made the purchase. Considerations like product warranties and installation are just as important regardless of where the product selection took place.
If you're going to move forward and make a purchase, ask for references and check the Better Business Bureau to get a sense of the company's performance.
Find out whether the company has their own installers or if they contract that work out. You'll want to make sure you're comfortable with the experience level of whomever's going to install your new carpet or other floor covering.
Robert Levesque
Publisher/Editor
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