Is the Floor Covering Industry Going High-Tech?

www.onesourceflooring.com is a second generation web site that is the "Yellow Pages of the Floor Covering Industry' explains Vice President and Director of Marketing, Darlene Geiger. "As with most every other aspect of our lives today, the World Wide Web will prove to be a valuable asset to any consumer looking to purchase any flooring product as well as installation and inspection services.' The first generation web site www.installersonline.com was geared to strictly give consumers a place to find an installer or inspector for any floor covering product. "Once it started appearing at the top of the list when a web search was done with the word "flooring', we started getting buried with requests from retailers to list their company on the web site' said Darlene. "We do not promote the sales of floor covering products over the web nor do we discourage it. We feel however that most consumers today turn to the web first and this is where we offer an avenue to list your business. Our search tool allows customers to look by area code and find the businesses and individuals in their areas offering the services the customer if looking for.'

It became apparent that the industry needed an online database that serviced the consumer, the retailers, the distributors and the manufacturers of all products relating to the industry, thus www.onesourceflooring.com was born. Here is a web site that for a small annual fee, anyone can have a web presence. Web sites are not cheap to develop and even more costly to maintain and keep at the top of any search result.

"This is where the technology behind our web site makes it work. A web site that no one can find is worthless regardless of how pretty or how functional it is' says Darlene. "We have developed our site with the expertise and technology of Microsoft and Oracle Corp., the 2 largest companies providing software technology to the World Wide Web. Couple this technology with some financial backing and that recipe guarantees our site will always deliver a search result on the first page of any search engine.

The web site has categories for manufacturers, distributors, retailers, installers and inspectors. "We foresee that our site will in fact be the one source anyone can go to. We refer to it as the "On Line Encyclopedia' for anyone in the industry.'

"In summary' says Darlene, "www.onesourceflooring.com will continue be the leading web based source of advertising for the industry as a whole and we invite everyone to check us out. After all, where else can you get exposure on the web for your business for such few dollars'