HADINGER'S KEEPS  BIZ GROWING
WITH CUSTOM RUGS, DESIGNER BIZ

Exterior of Hadinger Flooring in Naples, FL

 By Denise Gallagher

NAPLES, FL -- In the tony, well-heeled town of Naples Fl., the ongoing question is:  How to grow a steady  business in a seasonal locale?

In Naples, as in other sunbelt resort areas, the population increases three-fold during the Winter months, and decreases considerably during the Summer.

Winter Snowbirds and residents who flee the heat in the Summer make up the complex customer base  of  Hadinger Flooring, so weathering the annual ups-and-downs of the local economy is nothing new.

The high end floor covering specialist has been providing Southwest Florida with quality products for more than 32 years.

Owners Tom and Judy Hadinger have identified two areas that offer growth opportunities:

• Custom designed rugs; and

• Building strong relationships in the professional design community.

     Custom Rugs


One of Hadinger's custom rugs reflects cool elegance of Naples' seaside ambiance.

For the past six months, Hadinger's has been promoting custom rugs with full page color newspaper ads. The store offers  clients  the ability to design their own area rugs to coordinate with  fabrics, paint chip or  pillows. Using computerized techniques, they can create their own design and select from a wide range of colors and textures.

According to Shawna Jones, Hadinger's rug specialist, the personal, customized appeal is a winner. The program has increased  her medium priced  rug business by about 10%.

Approximately 50% of Hadinger's rug business is in the medium price range, while 15% is high end and 35% is entry-level, according to Jones. 

Using  a wide selection of patterns and borders, computer designs provide enormous flexibility, allowing for enlargement of  traditional  sizes or redesigning  the configuration of rugs to meet customer’s requirements, Jones explained.

The custom designs may take  8 to 10 weeks or longer, depending on the intricacy of the patterns. That usually fits the lifestyle of snowbird customers, who are "up north"  for several months in the Summer. It's good for the store, too, providing plus business for the Summer months.

Hadinger's Shawna Jones worked with a customer to develop this custom rug in an assymetrical nautilus shell design.

As an example of how Hadinger works in developing custom rugs, Jones discussed a customer who had been looking for over a year for a 7 x 10 rug for her master bath. She wanted a shell design using a palette of watermelon and apple green." I  designed a Tibetan hand-knotted wool and silk rug with a central Nautilus shell using those colors, and she was thrilled," said Jones.

    Building Relationships in the Design Community

 Designers are  an important part of Hadinger’s total sales, and the company offers an attractive designer discount program to encourage their business.

“While customers are away in the Summer, designers are preparing their client's  homes.  "If we did not have a good designer base it would be really tough through the Summer months." said Jones.

The Hadinger showroom displays over 5,000 rugs grouped by style, and designer are encouraged to browse on behalf of their clients. Designers are also becoming increasingly interested in custom-made styles and patterns to fill  clients needs, according to Jones.

Not everyone escapers during the Summer months. Hadinger also relies on designers to  bring in  local customers who are still in town. "They can drop off color boards with us and we pre-select fabrics and styles for them,” Jones said. “Working one-on-one with the designer, we can select for the customer based on  fabric and color and pare the decision down to fewer choices,” she noted.

ED NOTE: Denise Gallagher is a free-lance writer who resides in Naples, FL with Iris, a 13 year-old Toyota Celica. She has been a staff writer for Fairchild Publications and numerous consumer publications.

05.23.08