(The retail community is counting down the days until Mohawk’s Edge Summit takes place this winter. As such, we’ve tapped several retailers, large and small, to explain what they’re looking forward to most.)
Reason to attend: Promos/Products/Specials
Sonja Early Betts
manager
Early’s Carpet, Amissville, Va.
Promotions. Mohawk gives Edge dealers creative ideas to drive traffic to their stores. We actually just had a Blake the Rhino blow-up here at our store to try to catch people’s eyes, get them more interested in SmartStrand. I love it. We sell a lot of SmartStrand carpet. Having Blake here gives people an opportunity to actually ask, ‘Hey, why do you have a rhino in your store?’ We often overlap our advertising for Early’s with Mohawk’s national campaigns.
We’re also doing a promo where we do area rug giveaways for teachers right before the kids go back to school. We give all the teachers a 6 x 9 if they show us their badge and they work or live in the three counties that we sell to. It’s a good way to get people to come in and see your store if they’ve never seen or heard of you—it’s good advertising.
And once we get the customers to come into the store, then we can direct them to the product that’s right for their application.
Product launches. I am very excited about the new stuff that’s coming out at Edge. We do get a little “sneak peek” beforehand, but when it’s actually released you get to see the final—what they ended up doing. We carry all the major brands—Mohawk, Karastan, Godfrey Hirst, Pergo. RevWood is my go-to, and now they have expanded it to different tiers.
Specials. We attend Edge for the access to the new products and specials at the show. We like it when Mohawk has specials for us to buy. I feel like that’s another opportunity to see what they have to offer. That’s another benefit I like about going to the Edge.