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The USAGFA supports the quarts slab industry and believes the upside opportunity for fabricators out weighs the objections that have been brought to our attention. For six years I owned, manufactured sold and tested several quartz products (not cambria). There have been disingenuous representations from a segment of the quartz industry. Quartz certainly is ideal in certain application and suitable in others. Fabricating quartz is generally easier to fabricate than natural stone and can be very profitable.
The quartz segment of the industry can add significant dollars to your bottom line. Projected market share increases vary depending on who is conducting the surveys and how the surveys are worded. We believe the quartz segment will continue to develop new products and expand. Quartz isn’t for all customers; actually quartz isn’t for most customers. I believe there are two types of clients that would benefit from quarts over granite. The first type of client has an environment that experiences an unusually high level of abuse. Quartz counter tops do have a slight edge over granite in durability. When money isn’t an issue and the client wants the old world look of marble, we appreciate the functionality and fantastic representation offered by Caesar Stone (see the link below). In most circumstances with a minimal amount of effort granite will provide satisfactory performance with an exceedingly superior level of beauty and will allow the client to feel the pride associated with natural stone. The other client has to have a color not naturally occurring in nature or if occurring in nature is to cost prohibitive. Nature does produce the most stunning colors but there are colors that are not easy to come up with, and are offered by the quartz slab industry. When a gifted designer is inspired by one of these unique colors the results can be breath taking. Quartz colors can be dated and is usually not as timeless as natural stone. To purchase slab quartz material in Northern Michigan we would pay about double the square footage price of low end granite. Because of no grain direction and specific slab sizes, there are projects that lay out just right, limiting waste. When we where quoting this type of job we always quoted quartz along with granite. Quartz jobs always flowed through the shop very smooth. Thanks to the consistency in color it wasn’t necessary for clients to visual the slabs, we could always lay out the slabs in a way that maximized production efficiencies, the saws, routers and polishing wheels always could be run at a consistent maximum speed, we didn’t need to worry about fissure or wrapping we didn’t need to worry about re-roding around sinks, we didn’t need to grind seems. The warranty work was almost non-existent and the one incident of an unhappy client the manufacturer happily paid us to remake the kitchen at a profit (there was nothing wrong with the material we replaced). When we first fabricated quartz some of our employees where a little snooty, saying, “if it’s not natural stone I’m not touching it”, they eventually came around, to save face they would simply say “it’s o.k.”. I’m a firm believer that it’s hard to serve two masters to believe that you can sell material wholesale and then fabricate a product to compete with the same client is a dangerous business plan. This appears to be how the American manufacturer of quartz has chosen to operate. We do not support this business model. We do not support companies spinning the facts relating to the food safety concerns as it relates to granite. We will add some links to our site that scientifically prove that granite is perfectly safe and superior to most countertop materials. Not to long ago there was a manufacturer of a synthetic counter top saying there product was superior to granite, now there marking there own line of granite. If you offer only one product you need to have a story that convinces your client you have what they need. If you offer all the products you can have the best story of all. Quite simply there are differences in the products, let me ask a few questions to help us determine which product best meets your needs. Some of the message boards have complaints from fabricators that are competing with quartz slab manufacturers that fabricate. We need to fight this trend with fire. These manufacturer/fabricator are going after your granite client by convincing the client what they offer is superior. Why not offer three different lines of an equivalent product and let them use there advertising dollars to help drive your business. It’s not hard to see how close the quality of product is amongst the biggest players. There are plenty of fabricators already fabricating quarts, we think that’s good business, what would be better business is if we could develop a program with one or two manufacturers of quarts. This would give a member of our association a distinct advantage to compete with the big box stores and the manufacturing/fabricators. Next week we will put a survey up asking what lines of quartz that you would like us to consider for this program. This could be a first step in really buying smart and reducing our cost of goods. We need to know what you think, please if you have an opinion or thought on this subject send us an email, we truly do enjoy all thoughts. Especially ones pointing out errors or those recommending a better direction. http://www.caesarstoneus.com/gallery/gallery-concetto.cfm# |
