Rolling Out a New Shopping Experience: Dayton’s Mobile Flooring Showroom® Brings the Flooring Store to You
DAYTON, Ohio — Choosing new flooring can be stressful, especially during the holidays. Between juggling color samples, hauling planks from the store, and second-guessing how everything will look at home, consumers often find themselves overwhelmed. But Floor Coverings International of Southeast Dayton put the showroom on wheels, changing that forever. (Watch the full story.)
Floor Coverings International of Southeast Dayton operates on a simple but effective premise: bring the entire flooring selection process directly to the customer’s doorstep. The company’s mobile flooring showroom, a van packed with hundreds of flooring samples, allows homeowners to view options right where they’ll be installed — in their own homes, under their own lighting.
“It’s one thing to pick a sample under bright store lights; it’s another to see it next to your furniture or in your natural light,” said Eric Curtis, owner of the Southeast Dayton franchise. “We realized that customers make better choices when they can actually see how a floor will look in the environment where it’s going to live.”
Curtis, who has a background in retail and customer experience management, said the idea isn’t just about convenience — it’s also about accuracy. The mobile showroom is equipped with a wide range of materials including hardwood, luxury vinyl, carpet, and tile. Customers can compare texture, tone, and durability on-site, while a design consultant measures the space and creates an estimate during the same visit.
Production coordinator James Morrison oversees many of the installations and noted that the approach improves workflow from start to finish. “We take the guesswork out. When people see how the flooring interacts with their wall color or lighting, they make confident decisions. That means fewer returns, fewer delays, and a better final result.”
The company’s service model also integrates installation planning into the same visit, which office manager Jeremy Totten said reduces miscommunication between sales staff and installers — a common complaint in the flooring industry. “We order everything and prepare it for the installers, so they have everything they need when they go out.”
“By the time we arrive to install, the customer already knows exactly what they’re getting. The measurements are done, the materials are correct, and they’ve seen everything in place ahead of time,” Morrison continued. “That cuts down on surprises and helps us deliver a cleaner, faster installation.”
Customers who have used the service have echoed those sentiments, noting that seeing samples in their own spaces helped them make better decisions. Curtis said that kind of feedback confirms what the company has seen nationwide: that convenience, paired with transparency, builds stronger relationships.
“The flooring business has always been about trust,” Curtis said. “People are letting us into their homes — that’s personal. When we can bring the entire process to them and make it easy, it changes the tone completely. They feel like we’re partners in the project, not just salespeople.”
As the home improvement industry continues to adapt to changing consumer expectations, Curtis believes this model represents a broader shift toward mobile and in-home services. “We’ve seen people order everything from cars to groceries from their phones,” he said. “Why shouldn’t they expect the same level of service and convenience when they’re making a major design decision for their home?”
For now, the team at Floor Coverings International of Southeast Dayton is focused on serving homeowners across the region, rolling their showroom from neighborhood to neighborhood. “It’s still about craftsmanship,” Curtis added. “We just found a way to make the process smarter — and a lot less stressful for the customer.”
About Floor Coverings International
Floor Coverings International is the #1 Mobile Flooring franchise in North America. Utilizing a unique in-home experience, the mobile showroom comes directly to the customer’s door with more than 3,000 flooring choices. Floor Coverings International has 250-plus locations throughout the U.S. and Canada with plenty of opportunity for continued expansion. For franchise information, please visit https://flooring-franchise.com/ and to find your closest location go to www.floorcoveringsinternational.com.
*See Item 7 of the current Franchise Disclosure Document for more information and context about the initial investment.
**Please see Item 19 of the current Franchise Disclosure Document for more information. Results may differ. There is no assurance that any franchisee will perform as well.
