Economy a big factor
As Boe noted, over the last three years, with the market having turned down, “the industry probably lost half a billion yards of business. If every yard is two pounds of fiber, you’ve lost almost a billion pounds of fiber consumption. At the same time, much of that reduction was in spun nylon, and the prices of the nylon staple that go into spun nylon had increased pretty dramatically to the point where today, it’s more expensive to buy a pound of nylon staple than it is to buy a pound of nylon BCF. The cost of converting staple into yarns is more expensive than the cost of converting BCF into yarn.
“All of a sudden, you’ve got a situation where people find nylon spun is unattractive from an economic standpoint,” Boe noted. “As business starts to come back, it’s coming back on the growth of polyester and the growth of nylon BCF.”
As far as fiber’s green story goes, he noted that there are more opportunities to make polyester products green. “It’s being done with nylon, but not to the degree it can be done on polyester.”
Stainmaster, Lowe’s: What it means
In commenting on Stainmaster’s exclusive deal with Lowe’s, and what it means for the industry, Boe said he believes Invista probably felt it wasn’t getting the kind of share of the business it would have liked to have gotten from Lowe’s and Home Depot combined, “so it felt that by getting one dedicated to sup- porting the Stainmaster brand it’ll be committed to the necessary advertising to promote the sale of Stainmaster at Lowe’s and, as a result, Invista will get more business at Lowe’s than both companies together.
“Secondly,” he added, “if Lowe’s is out there doing the advertising, Invista will get a residual effect from the independent dealers who will see that advertising, knowing the consumer is going to have that much more opportunity to identify Stainmaster carpet, and they’ll be coming into the independent dealers looking for it as well. I believe Invista feels it will get an even wider assortment of Stainmaster ads with the independent dealers and be able to improve its overall position in the market.”
Griffith noted one of the benefits of the agreement will be a huge amount of advertising around floor covering, and the Stainmaster brand that is going to create a positive umbrella for the industry [as this] high quality carpet drives people into retail locations. We believe not only will this benefit Lowe’s and Stainmaster, it will be a benefit for the entire industry.”
-Louis Iannaco