Dean Kelly of Carpet Baggers Carpet One Floor & Home in Charleston, South Carolina, took home the 2024 Carpet One Floor & Home Alan Greenberg Award. The Alan Greenberg Award recognizes the member who most embodies the Carpet One Floor & Home spirit and who best represents what CCA Global Partners co-founder, Alan Greenberg, stood for. It is based on overall participation in programs, contributions to the cooperative, and support of fellow members throughout the year.

Since opening the store in 1992, Kelly has kept the business a family affair, having enlisted the help of his father, Colin Kelly; his sister, Traci Jobling, and her husband; along with his wife, LouAnn; and daughters Sydney and Parker.

Carpet Baggers has grown to be one of the biggest and most reputable retailers in the Low Country. That growth is attributed to Kelly, who is known for treating both his staff and customers like family. Always forward thinking, he has instilled a multipronged, hands-on approach to achieve success and position the business for the future by investing capital into the business, providing professional and personal guidance for staff development and, most importantly, giving back to the community through many philanthropic endeavors.

Sales in 2023 proved to be the company’s best year yet, and Kelly said that his projection for 2024 will be within 5% of that number.

Dean Kelly with his daughters Sydney and Parker. Photo: Carpet Baggers Carpet One Floor & Home.

“I’m going a little against the numbers with my forecast,” Kelly said. “Our natural trend has been our first quarter being our worst quarter, and each quarter is better than the last, with the fourth quarter being our best one of the year. Last year was completely reversed, with the fourth quarter being our worst quarter of the year, and the first quarter being the best one. So, even though we had an overall really good year, we trended downward, especially the last half of the year.”

That said, the retailer reports a resurgence of activity in the showroom.

“We saw more people in our showroom the first week in January than we saw the entire month of December,” Kelly said. “This trend has continued into February. So, we feel a little better about retail than we have in the past six months. We know we will start the year a little behind last year because we are chasing very good first and second quarter 2023 numbers, however we hope to get back to the days of old when the second half of the year was the best part of our year.”

The company’s plan for 2024 is to be more aggressive in its approach to advertising and sales. Kelly said he will maintain his ad spend so that the business stays top-of-mind when consumers are ready to buy.

“I told our sales people in a recent meeting, gone are the days when consumers were flocking in and wanted to know how quickly you could do their projects and could pay a little extra to get moved up on the schedule,” Kelly said. “It’s time to target market—identify people you want to do business with and start making sales calls again.”

Carpet Baggers Carpet One is also looking to invest in new product lines this year, including an expansion into kitchens and baths.

“We have sharpened our swords and are ready to battle,” Kelly said. “We started looking at cabinets the last half of last year, and we are putting the finishing touches on our cabinet business plans. We hope to be ready to promote cabinets by the beginning of the third quarter of this year.”