Ceramic/Stone Market Study: Ceramic and stone stay rock solid, but few clear trends emerge at retail

While these are among the handful of trends that can be gleaned from our retailer survey on the ceramic/stone segment, the study also suggests that the category cannot be neatly pigeon-holed. It is clear that retailers have a wide range of views on how much space to devote to ceramic and stone products and what brands to carry. What's more, the portion of respondents who said the average ceramic/stone transaction was less that $3,000 was almost exactly matched by those who said it exceeded that figure. The key area of consensus, however, is that it is an important area of the flooring business, particularly in the residential segment which, respondents said, accounts for nearly 80% of their sales in the category. Most said they expect to see continued growth for the remainder of the year. After that, finding an "industry norm" for ceramic/stone sales is elusive.

Perhaps most notably there are various views on how much space should be devoted to the category. Just over one-third of the respondents said their ceramic/stone section occupies from 11-20% of their total floor space, while 30% said the figure is between 21% -50% and another 29% said it is under than 10% (Only 7% said they devote more than half their display area to it.) Similarly, when asked "Of your total tile sales, what percentage is of porcelain tile?" one-fifth of the respondents said it was from 11 to 25% while 24% said it was from 26 to 30% and 17% said the figure was from 31 to 50%. Nearly one-third indicated it was more than 50% of their business.