Shipping rates increase across flooring industry

If you have visited the gas pump recently you are painfully familiar with the price of gas. That prices translates to a higher cost to you each time you fill up your car or whatever you drive. Well imagine the trucks that haul freight all across the United States, Canada, Europe and the rest of the world for that matter – they have 300-400 gallon tanks!

Although end users of flooring don’t often see the direct cost of gas, freight is a big cost that is factored every time the flooring materials are moved. This doesn’t just include getting the flooring from a retailer to the end user, but every part of the raw materials before and during production, post production, distribution and ultimately to your local retailers like Home Depot, Lowes or flooring distributors. Every time the flooring is moved a layer of cost is added.

It has been calculated that as much as 25% of the flooring cost is the multiple layers of freight and that was during times when gas was less than $3.00 per gallon. More importantly that is an average impact. On lower cost flooring like laminate or entry level products the proportions are even higher – as much as 50%. Now with diesel fast approaching $5.00 per gallon one can only wonder that that will do the the cost of your flooring.

If you are looking to buy flooring anytime during 2011 it is recommended that you take a immediate look to lock in today’s rates before inflation at every level pushes the prices higher and higher.