There are many considerations to work through when selecting carpets for your property. Having a consultant does make the job easier when it comes to working out tricky choices like what’s the best investment for the owner, aesthetics of the whole thing, should it be wool, woven? What’s the floor traffic, how much do you need and many more considerations.

It’s a pretty exhausting process - here are a couple of things you need to keep an eye on to get the best value.

It’s sad to say along the way you will find that some of the information received was a little deceptive. Some points below will help you stay on track.

Misleading the weight or grade of carpet can catch the unwary buyer out.

Weight or grade of carpet used in a commercial application is 40 ounce as the standard requires. Substituting only a 20 oz weighted carpet means less cost to the supplier but means a dramatically shorter life for the hotel carpet.

Cheap nasty underlay can ruin any good carpet as it flattens out and is like concrete to walk on. It’s popular to substitute cheaper underlay.

Overstating metres required can catch you out very quickly and add extra unwanted dollars to the bottom line. The hotel generally relies on the carpet measurement of the supplier, consultant, and installer. Would you know if the corridor was 50 metres long or needed 50 metres of carpet? If the corridor was only 46metres then being charged for an extra 4 metres at $200 per metres adds up. If you were doing 25 floors that’s a very quick $20,000 you lost. It happens more often than you think.

You should ask what the measurement is and then have your own people check it.

Its not uncommon to find also a little surprise when those third party people who are helping you, handover the quote have added a couple of metres , after all it was a nice presentation you may not realize what’s going on.

Did you know you are suppose to receive from the supplier a certificate that identifies the carpet in terms of material, weight and fire rating?

You need to check that the carpet is fire rated and get the certificate - if you have a fire in the hotel you could faced with possible non payment of the insurance and possible a negligence charge for not checking by both the insurance company and the asset owner.

Many get bitten with a great price on that imported stuff but it could be underweight and not be fire certified.

Finally read the fine print on your proposal the GST is included on some quotes and sometimes in very small print and not included in others.

That means your purchase will vary by another 10%.

The Kenson Team

Awareness is a valuable tool when out shopping these days.

Have you ever noticed the subtle tricks used in your local electrical store who scream day and night in the media they are the cheapest or have a once only red hot price.

Well perhaps you should look a little harder and take more notice of the tricks used to seduce you to buy that “Cheaper Priced” large flat screen TV you dream of having?

Notice how it’s dark where the TVs are – They look better.

See how they all run on a DVD – that’s the best picture you can get. The picture that comes from you aerial is much poorer quality.

Many TVs generally display the picture from the aerial very poorly compared to a DVD

.

Notice the cheapies are placed in the middle of the big brand name units.

Its called Brand Association – A little bit of glow rubs off!

First and foremost, a brand is a promise. It says ‘you know the name, you can trust the promise’. Trust is a first critical step and brands aim to accelerate that step by leveraging the implied promise of the brand

The brand image works as a psychological trigger or stimulus that can causes an association.

That cheapie association seduces you through things which are similar or related in someway.

By putting the Cheapie in the middle of the brand names the sales person by offering a few well chosen lines intimates the Cheapie is as good as the more expensive models.

You will find on the Cheap no name models have the contrast ratio is turned right up to 95%. - Makes them look close enough to the picture quality of the better brands.

Good brands need only 75% contrast ratios.

Cheapies use far inferior unrepairable components and generally a nightmare when you need it fixed. Stores sell these units to get higher margins or make them a loss leader to get you in the store.

Up selling by the sales team on these models consists of an “extended warranty” which sounds reasonable until you trot your TV into the local repair guy who has not seen that brand or model before and has no references to trace back faults let alone get parts.

A well known cheapie recently put their warranty repair out to tender to drive down the price of repairs – guess what no takers, we wonder why.

Stick with manufacturer’s warranty.

No doubt you will be offered a surge protection device to go along with the sale.

The idea is ok but the price for the device is generally horrendous - however it looks OK when compared to the price of the TV. Check other devices in other stores first.

There are so many tricks – we’ll bring you more to help you with your awareness.

The Kenson Team