Flooring distributor contract for O/O?

I'm not quite sure companies the size of Shaw and Mohawk would contract O/O's. Both they're private fleets are pretty huge. Shaw I think is the third largest private fleet and a fortune 500 company. Not quite sure about Mohawk...but maybe talk to someone in transportation and see if they can answer your questions if you work for one of these companies. As far as other companies to consider...Shaw and Mohawk are pretty much it. Unless you want to go the Intermodal route...picking up containers of imported slabs, marble, granite, and such from other countries. Lots of O/O's work the rails and ports. Or possibly contract for other parts of the flooring industry...like mapei grout, DAP adhesive, cement boards, etc.

But other than that, if Shaw and Mohawk were to ever outsource work, I would imagine it would be on a large scale...like contracting one of the Megas, instead of using a whole bunch of O/O's. Sorta like the way Walmart and Costco does it with a mixture of outsourcing and private fleet.

If you really wanted to start your own business in the flooring industry, opening up your own flooring showroom is probably the way to go. You'll work as a distributor for various different flooring companies that'll use your store to sell their products by placing flooring display samples of carpet, tiles, hardwood, laminate, and even slabs of stones like granite and marble for countertops. Salesman, or saleswoman...will put up the displays and take your orders from you once a customer decides on what they want. That's where companies like Shaw and Mohawk will deliver the order, either to your store for pickup for the customer or installers, or possibly straight to the construction sites or residential areas. Money will be made by installation, since most of the people who put up new floors tend to use contractors or installers to do the work.

 

Shaw is number 53 in Private Fleet and have 725 Trucks Mohawk is number 88 and have 488 Trucks
I hope this help

 

If you plan on going the O/O route specifically for flooring only...you might be able to lease on to a company like Maverick...which specializes in flatbed loads like granite slabs and hardwood.



DAP uses FedEx Ground and Mapei uses various different LTL carriers...so you might be able to lease on to one of these carriers, unless you want to go the brokerage route, but then...if your plan is to become an O/O, why just limit yourself to just flooring?

 

For a while I worked for a flooring company. They had a headquarters where they would cut the rugs and custom make them. They had trucks that would come in and deliver flooring products there.

Then they had smaller sales places they had counter sales that experienced installers would come in and order whatever they needed for that week's installations. They had drivers that would deliver from the headquarters to each of those Sales locations.

Also at those Sales locations they would receive deliveries from Mohawk and Shaw. They seemed to be a 100% private fleet, at least for those type of deliveries.

For what it's worth, I think it would be easier to just try to hook up with a broker that handles that type of freight. As the other person said at that point you probably would be pulling different types of freight, although the flooring is very light.