Client description: Carpet manufacturer

Practice area: Market Research and Analysis

Geographic scope: US

Industries involved: Architecture & Design, Education, Healthcare, Hospitality, Consumer, Corporate

Services applied: Voice of Customer, Concept Testing

Business challenge: After noticing a trend in using less chemicals in FF&E products, client developed a fluorine free solution and wanted to test the concept before including it as a new offering

Methodologies: 22 telephone in-depth interviews (IDIs) with pre-qualified buyers/users and 320 quantitative surveys.

The result: A thorough report with details on brands used by respondents; reasons for selecting a brand of carpeting; satisfaction with brands used; key factors in carpet selection; industry trends and other relevant factors; importance of carpet features; awareness and impact of legislation standards; chemical red lists; awareness of chemicals in carpeting; and familiarity with fluorine.

Findings revealed that aesthetics, price and durability are the key factors in their decisions. Buyers and end users do not typically look at the composition of carpet, as it is not a key factor for them. Terms like chemical red list or chemical transparency were not on their radar. They assumed the government is regulating manufacturers and that harmful chemicals was not something they needed to worry about. When presented with the concept, buyers/users had no awareness of fluorine or what role it played in carpeting, so they could not assess the benefits/drawbacks of fluorine-free solution. Most respondents were not inclined to pay a price premium nor trade off performance for a fluorine-free carpet solution. As such, a fluorine-free solution did not appear to be important at the time unless buyers/users hear from a credible source (e.g., independent research, press, government, etc.) that fluorine could be harmful.