Lowe’s rolls Stainmaster carpet brand into private brand portfolio
While Lowe’s has been an exclusive retailer of the Stainmaster carpet and flooring brand since 2010, the home retailer has officially acquired the brand and is rolling it into its portfolio of private brands.
The move from exclusive to private enables the retailer to look into expanding the brand into other categories throughout the store, leveraging the trust and loyalty of the stainmaster brand, said Sarah Dodd, Lowe’s SVP, global merchandising, in an interview with Store Brands.
Stainmaster has been around since 1986, introducing a soil and stain-resistant technology to its carpet products and then slowly growing the business into vinyl, tile flooring and more. With the acquisition, Lowe’s now owns the Stainmaster brand, acquiring all brand-related intellectual property and any related trademarks and sub-brands from parent company Invista.
Dodd said the brand will continue to be marketed as it has been, as an exclusive product of the retailer, for now, but going forward they will look into ways of expanding how it markets the brand under its private brands portfolio, just as it will look at extending the “high-performance characteristics” of the brand into other potential categories beyond flooring in the store.
Stainmaster joins other Lowe’s private brands such as allen + roth, Project Source and Harbor Breeze. Dodd said the brand fits a need for its customers as it continues to deliver a “Total Home strategy” for its shoppers.
“Research shows Stainmaster is the soft-surfaces brand customers trust the most when shopping for flooring,” she said. “This acquisition further demonstrates our commitment to deliver a compelling product assortment for customers wherever they choose to shop with us.”
The acquisition is pretty firmly in the announcement phase so it will be business as usual for the brand in the short term but one to watch as it develops at Lowe’s.
“At a time when home has never been more important, customers are increasingly looking for high-performance products to meet their evolving needs and expectations,” said Marvin Ellison, Lowe’s president and CEO. “We see great potential to leverage and extend the Stainmaster brand into other product areas to further serve our customers and deliver on our Total Home strategy.”