What are the hottest trends shaping the world of flooring today?
From the most popular months for shopping to the top materials and colors, Roomvo’s 2024 Flooring Trends Report is jam-packed with insights that will help your flooring business stay ahead of the curve.
Understanding consumer behavior is crucial in the ever-evolving flooring industry. But let’s be honest: getting your hands on the right data can be challenging, especially if you’re a distributor or manufacturer who has little contact with the end consumer.
Enter Roomvo.
This comprehensive report, the first of its kind, is based on two years of room visualization data from a subset of Roomvo’s 5,000+ partners. The subset includes more than 300 retailers, distributors, and manufacturers in the flooring and carpet industries, encompassing more than 160 million consumer interactions in 37 countries.
Ready to dive in?
Here are five key findings that will help you understand what homeowners are looking for in their flooring choices, serving as a compass to drive your business forward.
1. January is now the most popular month to shop for flooring
One thing is clear: consumers love shopping for flooring at the start of the year. In fact, 28.3% of global flooring visualizations occurred within the first three months of 2023, mirroring a trend seen in 2022.
But there was one notable change.
In 2023, January overtook March as the most popular month to shop for flooring, accounting for nearly 10% of the year’s global flooring visualizations. This trend was consistent across regions, with January also leading the way for flooring visualizations in the Americas and Europe.
Oftentimes, the beginning of a new year is when consumers review their budgets and plan for any major expenditures, which evidently include their home renovation projects.
2. Most shoppers are focused on living room flooring renovations
Knowing where consumers plan to install flooring in their homes is equally important as when they shop for it, which brings us to our second key finding. Living rooms were the most popular rooms for flooring renovations in 2023.
And it wasn’t particularly close.
Shoppers uploaded a photo of their living room 43% of the time when browsing flooring, accounting for nearly half of all room uploads globally. Europeans were most likely to visualize flooring in their living room, though data from the Americas told a similar story.
The living room is often one of the most frequented areas in a home, serving as a central gathering space for families and their guests. It should be no surprise, therefore, that shoppers view it as a priority for their flooring upgrades.
3. Luxury vinyl becomes world’s most popular flooring material
Move over wood: we have a new leader for flooring materials. Luxury vinyl secured the top spot with 23.9% of the year’s global flooring visualizations in 2023, gaining four percentage points from 2022.
Meanwhile, wood dropped slightly to 20%.
Durable, moisture-resistant, and easy to clean, vinyl is one of the best types of flooring materials for bathrooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, and basements. Luxury vinyl also comes in tiles and planks that can mimic the look of stone and hardwood while coming in at a lower price point.
Clearly, consumers have taken notice — especially in the Americas, which had the largest percentage of luxury vinyl flooring visualizations.
4. Laminate leads the way in Europe
Despite its global popularity, the luxury vinyl train doesn’t appear to have arrived in Europe just yet. In 2023, luxury vinyl was only the fifth most visualized flooring material in Europe. Instead, laminate led the way with 22.1% of flooring visualizations, narrowly overtaking wood.
Like luxury vinyl, laminate has emerged as a popular wood alternative due to its affordability and durability. Though not entirely waterproof, laminate is more resistant to moisture than traditional hardwood. At the same time, it can resemble the look of wood and is one of the easiest floors to install, making it an attractive option for DIYers.
5. Beige and brown dominate – again
When it comes to the hottest flooring colors, the data leaves no doubt: beige and brown continue to reign supreme worldwide. For the second straight year, more than three-quarters of all flooring products visualized were either beige or brown in 2023.
Shoppers showed a preference for beige-colored flooring, which accounted for 44.4% of the year’s global flooring visualizations and had an increase in usage across each region. The preference was clearest in Europe, where more than half of all consumers shopped for beige flooring.
Brown flooring was the runner-up in each region, proving a strong contender, especially in the Americas where it trailed beige by around five percentage points.
Drawing inspiration from elements such as soil, sand, rocks, and clay, these timeless hues complement a variety of color schemes and help evoke a connection to the natural world. As the data reveals, these are attributes that homeowners increasingly value.
Download the 2024 Flooring Trends Report
The success of any home decor business hinges on its ability to anticipate and respond to the changing preferences of modern homeowners. Staying on top of the latest trends is crucial for informing marketing campaigns, merchandising and pricing strategies, inventory management, and product development, helping to focus your efforts on what’s likely to resonate with your target audience.
