Thin Excuse

This isn’t a case of the turncoat whisking someone away from a nice granite display in a Big Box store to show them some tawdry, wobbly matte-white sheets in the back of an aisle. Nor is it bad advice given sotto voce, hand over the mouth, in a tone professing the guilt of the world.

The laminates went in long before I knew about the cutting, the gluing … it’s still horrible to contemplate. The questions keep coming in my head, late at night: What could I have done? Where did I go wrong?

OK, maybe everything in the trade today – the lingering downturn, the slabs going wanting for buyers, the people I know hanging up the grinders for good – is pushing me to the edge. There is a life beyond the L-shaped countertop.

So why would someone, with all the great options out there, choose laminate? The answer should be obvious – but don’t rely on an easy assumption.

In its recent World Residential Countertops study, The Freedonia Group noted that, in 2008, laminate accounted for one-fourth of global sales. The Cleveland-based research group also cited North America as a prime market; of all the laminate sold in the world during 2008, 40 percent of the material ended up in North American installations.

Laminate’s popularity, the study continued, comes from that tried-and-true notion: cost. The down economy, in following the usual reasoning, dictates budget choices from homeowners.

In the price-per-square-foot shootout, sheet will beat slab every time. Thinner wallets lead to the thin stuff being planked down in kitchen after kitchen.

The problem with a sure thing in business, however, is that there really isn’t a sure thing. Trusting an assumption is often the first (and biggest) step in making a bad decision, and the idea that most people opt for price might be short-sighted.

I certainly don’t blame Freedonia or any other market study for this; after all, it’s looking at the big picture and tracking worldwide production. I decided to bring the scope down in an unscientific method; instead of grumbling about consumer choices, why not ask some customers about why they’d choose laminate.

After several phone calls and coffee-table chats, I realized one word kept popping up about why laminate got the nod over anything else, stone included. The consistency of the answers surprised me.

And so did the word I heard time and again: practical.

Yes, the price factored into the decision, but sometimes as a throw-in reason or only if asked specifically about it. Laminate came up as the good ol’ standby; it held up pretty well for years with the old countertops, so why change?

Stone didn’t register as a sticker-shock item, or being a bit ostentatious for a moderate makeover of a kitchen or bathroom. Laminate appeared to be good enough for the job.

These are the notions, of course, that drive stone fabricators crazy. It only takes a boiling pot of pasta, a couple of knife slices or a few months with a Mr. Coffee® to take its toll with a standard sheet of laminate. A hard rub with a plastic scrub or some work with fine-grit sandpaper can erase a multitude of sins, but the surface isn’t quite the same after the stain or burn is gone.

Don’t these people know that stone’s going to work out better in the long run? Well … no. Old notions – like the one about cost – die very, very hard.

Plenty of people grew up with laminate installed in the family home. Even the trade names are ubiquitous: People will use Formica® as a generic reference for laminate, like Kleenex® for a tissue and Teflon® for a non-stick coating. Everybody knows it as the perennial countertop standby.

Laminate also remains consistent, both in color and availability. A 2” X 2” sample or a picture in a catalog is all anyone, needs to make a selection. You can find it in any decent hardware store or lumber yard (not to mention that Big Box store) and it’s ready to install today. If you’re not especially particular, it goes on right over the old countertop and doesn’t mess up your house during the installation.

Hey, I hear you out there; much the same can be said for stone. It’s much easier to get today, with consistent varieties. Installations are quick and efficient. We can make these same arguments.

So why don’t we?

Stone, to those of us in the trade, isn’t some piece of construction goods, like a plywood panel or a load of sheet rock. It has character and beauty, and a look that goes beyond the bland matte colors and speckled gruel of sheet material.

That also may be a self-laid trap; the words of unique or individual fail to mesh well with the notion of practical. We love the sizzle so much that we don’t notice the customer concentrating on the steak.

We’re also going to have laminates beat our time on looks. Companies are now offering sheets printed with pictures of standard and exotic granites.

Please refrain from shooting the messenger here; I find a countertop showing a picture of Blue Pearl as appealing as going to a bar to look at a picture of a glass of beer. Consumers, though, might find that picture of granite is good enough.

There’s no need to go on about the practical advantages of stone, from durability to longevity to the long-term savings and return on investment. You can do that with customers, and offer a sensible choice of stone by showing its value – and that also beats laminate to the draw on the cost issue without getting to price comparisons.

You don’t have to let friends buy laminate. You just have to be practical.

Emerson Schwartzkopf can be reached at emerson@stonebusiness.net. You can also read his blog at Stone Business Online and stonebusinesseditor.wordpress.com. And don’t forget to keep up with Stone Business on Twitter and Facebook.

©2010, Western Business Media Inc.