As the home of the "Floor Capital of the World", North Georgia carpets are spread all over the country. 

Now, a team of Georgian entrepreneurs and veterans in the flooring field is helping to bring the industry into the world of e-commerce. 

Shawn Wilson, CEO and founder of Plum Carpet, stated that the industry’s “cost structure is vague” and that homeowners are required to “play roulette with contractors” frequently. 

"The most frustrating and confusing part of the four buying processes is the price. So at Plum, we changed it."

As an e-commerce and direct-to-consumer startup, Plum has created an internal pricing method that can extract public data from individual properties. In this way, customers can clearly understand the pricing from the start of the refurbishment process.

Customers can then purchase luxury vinyl plank (LVP) hardwood and carpet options before working with the Plum team to install. In the "Warby Parker" style experience, Plum sent samples to test at home, Wilson said the team can usually install it within two to three weeks. 

Wilson said Plum’s direct-to-consumer model and its ability to quickly price and deploy projects is a particularly important competitive advantage when home service companies are under fire during the pandemic and consumers continue to deal with housing shortages across the country. 

Wilson said that when the team purchased carpets domestically, they were almost unaffected by the shortage of the global supply chain.

Prior to launching Plum at the end of 2019, Wilson worked at Mohawk Industries, The Home Depot, and Romanoff Renovations. The team introduced a capital partner in Atlanta early to expand. 

Flooring may not sound suitable for online purchases, but the long purchase cycle of buying carpets and hardwoods is an exciting challenge for Plum’s e-commerce director, Jay Allen.

"People don't wake up in the morning and decide to buy the floor that day," Allen told Hypepotamus. "They need to check the samples and consider this big purchase." 

Allen said that the team focused on building channels for its homeowners and B2B partners through strong content, and looking for new e-commerce solutions to attract key customers.