Countryside Carpets and Interiors

Dealer Focus

Always Today’s News

Countryside’s diverse product lines have something for everyone

By Jerry Rabushka

Rich Cooper has spent over 45 years in the flooring industry, and an owner of Countryside Carpets and Interiors, he’s not content to coast on past accomplishments. He enjoys keeping up with the fast-paced advances in flooring materials and helping his customers do the same.

Over the last decade... products, methods and philosophies have improved; Cooper congratulates the industry for making it happen. “Everything has changed based on the wonderful people in manufacturing who come up with better ways to make product to address customer desires. Whether it's a change in it's performance, fashion, maintenance or a combo of all,” he observed. “Every time we don’t think they can make a better mousetrap, the innovation that people display is just breathtaking… to see the advancement of how these floors perform.”

You might not think of a floor “performing” since it just stays in one place, but it serves as a stage to take a monumental amount of abuse from above. “We operate within the box of commercial or residential site, or a vacation

Pictured above: Rich Cooper, owner of Countryside Carpets and Interiors

home, under the most grueling aspects of any

finish,” said Cooper. “Our products and services are under strenuous use on a moment to moment basis and the innovation here is really – I hate to say breathtaking again, but it is in regard to what they’ve done and how they’ve done it,” he smiles.

Rich started in flooring out of high school nearly a half-century ago at a St. Louis stalwart called Tile Town Carpet City; he moved to Jay Henges Enterprises as president of their interiors division when TTCC was acquired by New York Carpet World. After about 15 years there, in 2004 he joined Countryside Carpets and Interiors as an owner, where he’s happily situated in an office decorated with photos of fishing and family, easy to find near the front entrance. Located in O’Fallon, Missouri, about a 35-40 minute drive west of the city of St. Louis, the store is poised to serve a wide swath of the St. Louis region. O’Fallon itself is in St. Charles County, the fastest growing county in the state and one of the fastest in the country. O’Fallon’s population has grown from 18,000 in 1990 to close to 90,000 today. Nearby St. Peters had a quaint 486 in 1970 and is on track to hit 60,000. There’s plenty of opportunity.

Countryside is approaching toward its 40 th anniversary; it started in the 1980s mainly supplying floor coverings for new residential construction. “From that time it evolved, as every business has had to, into a multifaceted company that reaches out to many different aspects of the industry,” Cooper said. “We still do new construction and we support the floorcovering needs of home builders in the greater St. Louis area, for example corporate customers where we go in and help them understand their needs and provide them the correct products and services for their spaces to be used effectively. We also engage in insurance restoration and replacement of floorcovering losses due to calamities.”

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Flooring at this store includes broadloom carpet, modular carpet, sheet vinyl, vinyl composition tile, solid and engineered wood, laminate, ceramic, natural stone and marble for the commercial, home building, remodeling, restoration and retail market segments. Diversity both in product line and customer base serves as a safeguard against hard times. “This way whatever happens in the economy, we have a little bit going on in all those areas,” he said.

TAKE A DEEEEP BREATH

There’s a lot more going on at Countryside than “here’s a rug, take it home.” The staff is involved with procuring and stocking materials in store, helping customers choose from those materials, and then making sure the installers understand best practices. The displays give clients a wide array of inspiration and a kids’ play area keeps the youngsters engaged while mom, dad and/or Aunt Agatha haggle over the color and texture.

But what looks good in the store has to look that good in its final stomping ground, and that’s where Cooper feels his store excels. “What makes Countryside stand out in customers’ eyes is the intense investment that goes into the people that install our products,” says Cooper. “The Local 1310, our union affiliate, and all our folks, go through an intense four-and-ahalf-year training program called Install.” This training involves the product manufacturers and keeps installers up to date on the ever-changing government regulation. “The installers can attend courses; we rely on the union, but we also bring in the suppliers to attend meetings to explain how to handle their products,” said Cooper. Usually a couple days a month there’s some in-store education going on. As Cooper pointed out, it’s… breathtaking.

Not only is innovation breathtaking, but also can be affordable, so customers who can’t budget a high-end floor can thank today’s materials and technology, get something that looks very much like it. “Things such as beautiful hardwoods used to be out of budget's reach, but now with the latest replication innovations from our manufacturers, family businesses like Countryside can now afford them,” said Cooper. LVT planks can give that upscale look for as much

as 75% less than real hardwood, he says, and due to their ease of maintenance, a family stepping out over Luxury Vinyl can spend more time enjoying their lives and less time maintaining a floor.

It’s a huge improvement over the when-I-wasyour-age laminates; Cooper acknowledged that customers would put up with their ugliness for the dynamic duo of maintenance and durability, but it was a tough tradeoff. These days, LVT and other hard surface flooring provide those same benefits in a package of good looks and affordability, so many people are trending away from carpet toward these materials.

SEVEN YEAR ITCH

These days when a customer gets to you – and for most homeowners it’s around every seven years – they’ve probably done some research, either online or by studying flooring styles everywhere they set foot. They know at least what they don’t want, which is usually what they’ve got already, and they might have some idea what they do want based on other interiors that have a floor they like.

“It’s our job to take a look at the products and show them the different features and benefits of the innovations that have come to the market,” Rich said. “When they come to the door, they expect us to lead them to the WOW factor. Everyone is working to take care of their family and earn a living in all aspects of their life and they don’t often give a lot of consideration to floor covering.

When they walk in here, they have money in their pocket put away to create a beautiful space and take care of their family, and it’s our job to guide them to the products that will fulfill their needs. That’s what our salespeople are trained to do – connect the customer’s desire to have a change in their life with the flooring that will bring the fulfillment of the desire to do that.”

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Failure for one store to do this, says Cooper, can fill a customer with distaste for the entire industry. They may just stay with their dusty disco shag rug and spend their money on a new dishwasher or a Caribbean cruise. “We all represent one another to the buying public,” he says. “Hopefully we all do the best job on a daily basis. If we do, positive statements are going to be made about embracing the industry we serve, which will draw their confidence and purchasing power. If we fail, we push their money away, perhaps not to a competitor, but to a whole different place.”

“E.J. has been a company and resource that has not only provided products, but also tech assistance in helping us to understand the proper placement of those products with outcomes that meet everyone’s expectation."

Countryside’s approach is that everyone on staff is as important as everyone else. “We all have defined roles to fulfill the outcome of the customer’s experience,” said Cooper. “If one is lacking, it’s recognized in something that didn’t turn out to a positive way for their customers.” “An extraordinarily successful life”

Countryside is very satisfied in its relationship with E.J. Welch. “E.J. has been a company and resource that has not only provided products, but also tech assistance in helping us to understand the proper placement of those products with outcomes that meet everyone’s expectation. A lot of people walk through this door trying to sell product to us,” said Cooper. “I never met one of them that didn’t promise they were going to give us the best products and service, so it’s hard to distinguish other than through best efforts, and E.J. delivers. They introduce us – from owners to line managers to salespeople to installers – to the latest and greatest innovation in the industry, so we can move those changes, hopefully seamlessly, from the day they come in to the day they get installed.”

Even with all the breakthroughs in flooring, Cooper sees this industry, as do many trades, as thirsting for qualified hands to lay it down. “Everyone’s capacity is being pushed right now,” he observed. “There are a lot of people out there that might say the only way you can succeed in life is through a fundamental education to be a part of an industry, but the most valued individuals are the people that carry the skill sets and craftsmanship in their hands.” It’s financially rewarding, he says, and a great confidence builder for someone who excels at their work. “People who take a good attitude in terms of ownership over the results of what they do in a day – meaning they care and want to deliver to the individual the best outcome they can – this is the breeding ground for an extraordinarily successful life.”