The result of years of design, research, and testing by Shaw Industries, the Shaw Design Center retail environment is so much a departure from the ordinary that it could reasonably be called an entirely new kind of flooring store. Some of the difference is purely aesthetic, and that's important – stepping into an SDC showroom, compared to the general run of carpet retailers, is like walking into the Rolls Royce dealership next door to Crazy Eddie's used car lot. But most of the difference is functional, in ways that are entirely to the customer's benefit – and that's where the research and development comes in. You wouldn't expect an art director or graphic designer to know much about flooring. But they do know something about organizing elements – whether words, photography, product samples, or anything else – so that it's easy to find what you want, and obvious how one element relates to another. So art directors were brought in to make the product displays less confusing and easier to use. It isn't much use to read that a particular carpet (for example) is a cut loop pile with a high twist if you don't know what those terms mean in the first place. So genuine information – not just sales copy – is provided alongside every product. No more browsing in the dark. Somewhere along the way, the Shaw development team made an amazing discovery: women tend to be shorter than men. So the displays are ergonomically designed with a low profile, enabling women shoppers to see and reach samples comfortably. The Floor Store's San Rafael store has been a Shaw Design Center – one of only six in Northern California – practically since they opened their doors in 2005. And they have recently done what many might have thought impossible: improved the SDC environment, with a general interior remodel and the addition of a comprehensive tile and stone gallery. If it was a new kind of flooring store before, it's the store of the future now. When The Floor Store opened its first location in Richmond, California, in 1983, Shaw had just made its first appearance on the Fortune 500 list, having reached $500 million in sales. Today, The Floor Store has six showrooms, in Albany, Concord, Dublin, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, and Pittsburg, and Shaw Industries is the largest carpet manufacturer in the world, with $5 billion in annual sales.
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