By Megan Salzano Now in its 93rd year, National Karastan Month kicks off today, April 29, and will run through June 22. The event is aimed at driving business to Karastan dealers across the country during their busiest times of year, spring and fall. The brand supports that goal with a bevy of marketing materials, a consumer rebate program, in-store support and even special financing for dealers to take advantage of.
“National Karastan Month has been a long-standing tradition,” said Jason Randolph, senior regional vice president of sales, Karastan. “As we all know, the spring and fall are typically the best selling periods for retail. Our retailers really want to drive that Karastan brand name during those high consumer demand periods, and this gives our retailers the opportunity to do that.”
This year’s event is unique in several ways. First, it will run for eight weeks vs. the traditional six. This is to give dealers—who may still be dealing with in-store capacity limits and other COVID-19-related challenges—time to attract consumers. “We know some stores are still by appointment only and social distancing, and there are capacity limitations,” Randolph explained. “This allows the consumer some additional time to select her flooring.”
It also comes on the heels of the boom in business seen across the industry in Q4 2020 and the first half of 2021. As Randolph put it, the sale can now capture “that tidal wave behind us—this surge of consumer demand.”
Lastly, the sale comes shortly after Karastan announced its largest broadloom launch in the history of the brand. “We worked very hard last year to inject additional style and fashion into the line,” Randolph explained. “We wanted to let everyone know that we are still bullish in carpet. We’ve seen that carpet is on the rise and, more importantly, we are seeing that better-end carpet is significantly on the rise. When consumers are coming in, they’re looking for better goods, and they’re looking to elevate the style in their room.”
Randolph added that several drivers are fueling carpet’s resurgence. “I think one of the things that’s driving some of the revival is the fact that everyone has spent so much time at home, and carpet is [much more comfortable] underfoot than hard surface,” he said. “Carpet also does a great job of abating some of that ambient noise in the room. The last part of that is that it is domestically produced—it has much greater availability than some of the hard surface products.”
This is also the second time the sale will be held across flooring categories, as Karastan expanded into a total flooring solution brand in 2020. As such, the brand’s entire portfolio of soft surface as well as hard surface LVT and hardwood flooring will be included in the sale. “When you go shopping, there’s always a sale rack but the product you want isn’t there,” Randolph noted. “That doesn’t happen with National Karastan Month. It’s just so simple for the retailer. They have a lot going on, and they just want a program to be simple and easy to convey to the consumer. I think the consumer likes the transparency as well. They want something that they can understand easily, and they walk out feeling like they received a great deal.”
For dealers, the opportunities to draw consumers in and streamline the experience are many. National Karastan Month includes the following support from the brand:
- Drive More Traffic: Retailers can target local customers with powerful ads designed to increase demand for Karastan products to drive traffic directly into their stores during the national sale event.
- Advertise the sale today: Retailers can access an extensive offering of ready-to-go advertising materials they can leverage to reach their local markets, including radio scripts, on-hold messages, web banners and billboard layouts.
- Incentivize customers: During the sale, Mohawk offers customers a mail-in rebate of up to $1,000 when the dealer agrees to pay 50% of all rebates of up to a maximum of $500 per rebate per household on hard and soft surface products.
- In-Store sales support: With in-store sales support, retailers can set up their showroom to promote the spring National Karastan Month sale, and help customers simplify their flooring decision by using the materials found in their point-of-purchase kit.