‘Til The End of … When?
So let me commit heresy: Are we telling customers the right thing?
Or, to be more-exact, is it really what the customer wants to hear? Should we take the greatest selling point about stone literally off the countertop?
Before officially declaring me a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, just stop and consider the notion that you can make a product’s reputation too good for itself. And, you can end up losing a sale to an inferior product because … well, it’s inferior.
This isn’t some idea pulled out of the Jean-Paul Sartre School of Business. It does happen, and not because customers are stupid. Far from it; these people are thinking hard about the future. We should, too.
To begin with, the notion that stone lasts forever—yes, even stone that’s well-maintained – sounds great, but it’s really a mixture of truth and fallacy. Stone, as a material, can last eternally or at least through anyone’s concept of such a thing. But who allows stone to ever be used that way?
I’ll save you the effort and trot out the perennial examples of ancient buildings with born-on dates stretching back at least a few millennia. And I can almost guess which two probably come to mind: the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, and the Colosseum in Rome. Both are great examples of stone’s staying power.
The problem is that what you see today isn’t what you could’ve seen thousands of years ago. Most of the dimensional stone that made these structures isn’t there anymore.
Take the pyramids, for example. When finished, these were marvels of geometry with smooth limestone surfaces. And, you’ll still find some of those marvelous surfaces, but not so much in Giza as in nearby Cairo. For centuries, builders hauled off the good stone for other construction projects. (Some historians hold that three pyramids were completely dismantled to build not-as-ancient buildings in other places.)
The Colosseum – also known as the Flavian Ampitheater, for you history buffs – once featured an impressive cladding of marble, along with other great ornamental stones. Now, it’s gone.
Not so much gone for good – some stone was burned for quicklime – as relocated. Romans used the great arena as possibly the world’s first big-box hardware center, stripping the stone (and the metal anchoring system and much else that could be hauled away) for use elsewhere.
This went on until 1749, when Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the place as a holy site … less than 100 years after a good amount of the Colosseum’s marble went into the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in what’s now known as Vatican City.
The point of this history lesson is that stone never has been, and never will be, an absolutely eternal product. It has the potential to last forever, but people won’t use it that way.
In the last few centuries, people developed a sense of antiquities and preservation, so it’s unlikely we’ll see any other great stone structures picked clean again. Nor will marauding hordes roll into the great subdivisions of America to ransack homes by carting away countertops and chipping out tile floors, either.
Will we see today’s installed stone last for centuries? In theory, it could. In reality, it won’t.
Stone’s current bid for eternity will be thwarted by the usual sticking point in the business: the customer. In the not-too-distant past, the client chose stone for its quality and, to be honest, the status that came with granite and marble in a home or at a business. Now that same client also puts style and value in the mix.
Style concerns now go beyond the usual vein and grain looks and seam placements. There’s a push for color coordination with stone and its installed environment.
A good all-around neutral stone that “goes with anything” isn’t going to ring customer bells. Designer-like shades will, and that’s where more-sophisticated solid-surface patterns and natural quartz can shine.
Thank the rise of the big-box retailer, in part, for making value a key concern. Places like Lowes and Home Depot – and to a lesser extent, membership warehouses like Costco and Sam’s Club – give stone a great showcase and attract a wider variety of customers. At the same time, there’s an instant opportunity to directly compare stone to other materials.
The big-box retail theory is to move as much of everything as possible, which means more than just all prices being kept as low as possible; you also don’t see a large variation between the good, better and best choices. Stone may cost the most, but the status of the super-premium price – the luxury effect – disappears.
The sheer volume of dimensional stone now entering the United States, along with the overall lower prices – compounds this. Consumers – both on the residential and commercial level – have more of an opportunity to put price aside when looking at stone.
That sounds great, but it also disturbs the traditional-until-now hierarchy, where choices stepped up from laminate to cast to solid-surface to stone. Not only does stone lose its perceived price point as the ultimate choice; it also means a client won’t be as reluctant to replace it at any point in the future.
Does that mean that the stone trade should give up fabrication quality if a job’s going to torn out in four or five years. Of course not. Neither should there be a push to hawk lesser-quality stone because it doesn’t mean it’s going to stay on a floor or cabinets for decades.
Stone offers plenty of other strengths when compared to other materials. There’s still a greater variety of stone out there than what’s created by manufacturers. Stone can be customized with shaping and edging better than other materials. And fabricators have a heritage of quality workmanship that’s hard to beat anywhere.
Stone can last as long as anyone wants it, and it’s also a quality investment. It has a look, feel and durability that stands the test of time – but don’t expect customers to make decisions based on eternity.
This article first appeared in the February 2006 print edition of Stone Business. © 2006 Western Business Media Inc.