"Axminster, in business for nearly 260 years, is in trouble. Has this country finally fallen out of love with carpets?"
Axminster, the British carpet maker, has announced its intention to appoint administrators.
Its possible demise has highlighted the state of the carpet industry, and the pattern that emerges is not a positive one.
The figures are stark. In 2006, £1.27 billion worth of carpets were sold in Britain. Last year, it was estimated that just £968 million worth were sold, a fall of 24 per cent. Andrew Hartley, a director at AMA Research, says: “The carpet market has been in steady decline for the last 15 or 20 years. It started to lose out to wood and laminate floorings in the mid-1990s. It was partly down to the Ikea effect and the rise of home improvement.”
In fact, we can date the toppling of carpet very specifically to 1996. This was the year when Ikea ran its hugely successful “Chuck out your chintz” advertising campaign, which tapped into the desire of young couples and students to abandon the heavy furniture and shagpiles of their parents’ generation and pretend to live in stylish loft conversions in Stockholm.
It was also the year that Changing Rooms hit British television screens. It was the first DIY programme that taught consumers that they could simply rip up their carpets and replace them with wipe-clean laminate. It was a cheap, fast-track route to modernity. How cool it all seemed back then; how tacky it all seems now.
At the start of the Changing Rooms era, £8 in every £10 we spent on our floors was invested in carpets. Now it is just over £5. The rest is on vinyl, wood and ceramic tiles, says AMA.
More than anything, however, Axminster is to blame for its own troubles.
First, its carpets were costly. A woven Axminster, designed to last a generation, sells for about £60 a square metre. This means that with the price of underlay, it can cost £1,500 to fit a modest-sized sitting room. Carpetright could sort you out for about £300.
Plus, Axminster made its name with intricately patterned designs that don’t appeal to today’s buyers. Its current range includes Versailles, Magnificant and Antique Splendour – fussy, swirly, care-home chic as stylish as a pair of corduroy slippers. Mr Coddington says: “The only people who bought Axminsters were very old, in their eighties. Axminster’s customers are quite literally dying out.”
When the economy finally bounces back, carpets could well rise again. Many people have realised that laminate floors are naff, and wooden floors, while stylish, are draughty, echoey and dirty in winter. Covering your floor in the wool of England is a warm, ecologically friendly, comforting option. Sadly, that will be too late for Axminster, a company that was not just a few years behind the times, but about half a century.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9885985/Pulling-the-rug-on-Axminster-carpets.html
Axminster, the British carpet maker, has announced its intention to appoint administrators.
Its possible demise has highlighted the state of the carpet industry, and the pattern that emerges is not a positive one.
The figures are stark. In 2006, £1.27 billion worth of carpets were sold in Britain. Last year, it was estimated that just £968 million worth were sold, a fall of 24 per cent. Andrew Hartley, a director at AMA Research, says: “The carpet market has been in steady decline for the last 15 or 20 years. It started to lose out to wood and laminate floorings in the mid-1990s. It was partly down to the Ikea effect and the rise of home improvement.”
In fact, we can date the toppling of carpet very specifically to 1996. This was the year when Ikea ran its hugely successful “Chuck out your chintz” advertising campaign, which tapped into the desire of young couples and students to abandon the heavy furniture and shagpiles of their parents’ generation and pretend to live in stylish loft conversions in Stockholm.
It was also the year that Changing Rooms hit British television screens. It was the first DIY programme that taught consumers that they could simply rip up their carpets and replace them with wipe-clean laminate. It was a cheap, fast-track route to modernity. How cool it all seemed back then; how tacky it all seems now.
At the start of the Changing Rooms era, £8 in every £10 we spent on our floors was invested in carpets. Now it is just over £5. The rest is on vinyl, wood and ceramic tiles, says AMA.
More than anything, however, Axminster is to blame for its own troubles.
First, its carpets were costly. A woven Axminster, designed to last a generation, sells for about £60 a square metre. This means that with the price of underlay, it can cost £1,500 to fit a modest-sized sitting room. Carpetright could sort you out for about £300.
Plus, Axminster made its name with intricately patterned designs that don’t appeal to today’s buyers. Its current range includes Versailles, Magnificant and Antique Splendour – fussy, swirly, care-home chic as stylish as a pair of corduroy slippers. Mr Coddington says: “The only people who bought Axminsters were very old, in their eighties. Axminster’s customers are quite literally dying out.”
When the economy finally bounces back, carpets could well rise again. Many people have realised that laminate floors are naff, and wooden floors, while stylish, are draughty, echoey and dirty in winter. Covering your floor in the wool of England is a warm, ecologically friendly, comforting option. Sadly, that will be too late for Axminster, a company that was not just a few years behind the times, but about half a century.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9885985/Pulling-the-rug-on-Axminster-carpets.html
