Titan Surfaces, recently cited among the short list of “emerging brands”, is proving why it’s garnering well-deserved attention. Still riding the high of a strong showing at Surfaces, the young brand is carving out its niche in the WPC market and making quite the statement in the process.
“We felt like Surfaces went very well for us,” said Jason Smith, vice president of sales. “We had a mix of current customers and those that we had been having conversations with. We also had potential customers come in that we had no prior contact with that we turned into customers. We were very busy at the show, and it was beneficial for us being a first year of actually having a booth.”
No surprise that Titan Surfaces—a rising star in the WPC arena—drew customers looking for the latest innovations that category has to offer. “We’re a WPC house first and foremost,” Smith stated. “As the category of luxury vinyl has evolved, we have so much confidence in WPC as far as the performance and durability—it’s less problematic. Also, how it looks. The strength of our visuals is our main message to our customers.”
While some companies have pivoted back to WPC as a result of well-publicized shortcomings pertaining to low-end, poor-quality SPC in particular, Titan Surfaces has long been a proponent of quality WPC. “Obviously we sell some SPC like everybody else, but 75% of our line is WPC,” Smith stated. “We’ve built our line around WPC, and we’re actually going to expand it in the near future. That reflects our confidence in that particular category and how it performs.”
The confidence in the WPC segment was apparent from the early days of the company, ac- cording to Kelly Williams, president of Titan Surfaces. “When we were starting this company, we believed in WPC 100%,” he said. “What we didn’t know starting was that SPC would start to have the level of failure in the market that we’ve seen in the past couple of years. I’m not going to say that was an added bonus for us—everyone who’s in the SPC market, including us, wants those products to succeed as well. But as often happens in this industry, a lot of that SPC growth was fueled with lower price points and often lower quality where products were maybe a little bit under-engineered. We steer clear from that at all product levels.”
WPC’s proven track record since the category was initially launched prompted Titan Surfaces’ chief executives—both of whom bring years of experience in the category—to bet big on WPC.
“WPC has been out there for more than a decade and there’s really no problems with it,” Williams noted. “It has succeeded on the floor, not just in the marketplace. So we feel good about our positioning and we’ll continue to grow the WPC flooring side of our business.”
The bottom line, according to Titan Surfaces, is to provide customers with a product they have full confidence in selling. “We understand that there may be problems no matter what you’re selling, but obviously having the dealer show the confidence is big,” Smith noted. “And I can tell you that us leading with WPC has been a key ingredient to our success overall.”
In an increasingly competitive resilient market, the fact that Titan Surfaces focuses on higher-quality WPC products makes a big difference, and translates into higher profit margin opportunities for its partners. “Providing a product with less issues and focusing on a category that is succeeding on the floor, I think that in itself brings your customer base a greater opportunity for profitability and for increasing profitability because of the lack of time and cost associated with issues,” Williams said. “That’s what fuels us all, right?”
But WPC wasn’t the only category that turned heads at the Titan Surfaces booth. The company also showcased its offerings on the laminate side of the business. “Our 12mm laminate was a big draw at the booth,” Smith said. “We displayed it very nicely and got some really good feedback. It was a great conversational piece and actually got a couple of distributors signed up on that.”
Satisfied customers
Retailers who have sold Titan Surfaces products over the course of the past year-and-half-plus had nothing but good things to say about the company.
“We’ve had Titan products in our store since they began,” said Nathan Green, owner of Dalton-based Southern Tile Company. “Out of all the factories and vendors I’ve dealt with on the LVP flooring side, I’ve had the best luck/success with them. That’s the display that most of my customers end up gravitating toward—the best colors, great quality. Literally no complaints and good pricing.”
James Prey, owner of Top Notch Flooring, based in Somerset, Ky., agreed. “We’ve had their WPC product in our store for a little over a year now; it’s quickly become our No. 1 seller. It’s a great product, great pricing, great colors, zero claims at this point,” he said.
Prey also said he enjoys the quick access to inventory—a key point for a company that imports product from Asia. “In a year and a half I’ve never had a product that was back-ordered—knock on wood. We’re only stocking LVP so far; but we just picked up their laminate display right after Surfaces.”
Andrew Hawthorne, owner of Floor Trader, Chesapeake, Va., attests to the quality construction of Titan’s WPC products. “Their WPC goes together well; it’s very thick and durable. They offer an 8mm, 10mm and 12mm vs. the cheap 5mm, flimsy boards you see out there. We never get callbacks with this product, and we guarantee our work for a year if we install it.”
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