Best Practices: Wall 2 Wall Flooring, Wall 2 Wall Commercial Flooring – May 2025
By Jessica Chevalier
In 1923, Charles H. Bohrer opened a contractor lumber yard in Pocatello, Idaho. Over the next 102 years, the Pocatello Lumber Yard evolved into what is today Wall 2 Wall Flooring and Wall 2 Wall Commercial Flooring, residential and commercial flooring operations with a combined ten locations across three states. Now run by Charles’ grandson Bill, the operation has kept relationships at its heart and remained committed to what Bill believes has been the foundation of its century-long success-a conservative, “baby steps” approach to change.
ORIGIN STORY
Pocatello was a small town in 1923, and Charles, a well-respected member of the community, found great success with his lumber yard.
In 1959, Charles’ son Ed, who had joined him in the business, started Lumber Dealers Supply, distributing building materials to the surrounding farm communities, as an offshoot of the lumber yard. Eventually, Ed shuttered the lumber operations completely. Then, in the early 1960s, Ed entered the do-it-yourself home center business. The home center’s most profitable department was do-it-yourself carpet, which sold carpet cut to size with double-sided tape for installation.
The success of the do-it-yourself carpet department led Ed to open a retail flooring store in Pocatello. He soon added locations in Idaho Falls, Idaho and Ogden, Utah. Those three locations remain the business’ retail stores today.
Bill worked in his family’s business as a teen, washing windows and sweeping floors, but then stepped away as he went off to college for quite a few years, earning a bachelor’s in economics from Stanford, an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and a juris doctorate from the University of California.
Around 1980, Bill joined his father in the business, and, in 1989, the company diversified into commercial flooring, as well. Today, Wall to Wall Commercial Flooring has locations in Salt Lake City, Ogden and St. George, Utah; Boise, Idaho Falls and Pocatello, Idaho; and San Diego, California. The commercial business serves the corporate, education, healthcare, hospitality/public space and performing arts sectors, though Bill points out, “Just about anything that requires commercial flooring, we do.”
WALL 2 WALL FLOORING
Bohrer’s residential flooring business offers a full line of flooring products.
“We distinguish ourselves residentially by inventorying,” says Bohrer. Retail locations stock rolls of carpet, palettes of vinyl plank and racks of sheet vinyl. “That way, we can serve customers a lot faster and price products a little bit better, because we buy in big quantities,” Bohrer explains.
While vinyl plank is making strides sales-wise, carpet has long been the top-seller for Wall 2 Wall and continues to hold a slight lead.
The company offers custom-made area rugs, showcased through in-store displays. These accounts for less than 5% of business and serve the higher-end consumer.
Bohrer reports that he used to do a lot of traditional advertising but has transitioned to online today, which he finds befuddling to some degree, as it can be so hard to determine which strategies are producing activity and which aren’t. He notes that in a scientific experiment, there is a control group, but there is no control group in advertising. “If you buy ads and you don’t see positive results, the guy who sold you the ads will say, ‘Imagine how business would have been had you not advertised!’” he laughs.
Bohrer’s Idaho Falls location features an electronic reader board in a high-traffic area, and he believe this is an asset. His other two retail locations have mechanical reader boards.
WALL 2 WALL COMMERCIAL FLOORING
Wall 2 Wall’s commercial operation, a Starnet member, is about five times the size of its residential business.
Bohrer reports that the success of his commercial operation hinges on relationships. “We are constantly in contact with our customers,” he says. “We maintain relationships with general contractors, architects and designers, facility managers, end users, state and federal agencies. We make it as personal as we can, visiting often. We try to find out about projects from general media as little as possible, instead relying on our relationships. That’s our bread and butter. That’s how we do business.”
He continues, “There are a lot of competitors who just bid on things. They haven’t done their homework and don’t have relationships with the players.”
In addition to the standard commercial floorcovering options, the company offers epoxy and polished concrete services as well as sports flooring.
While Wall 2 Wall Commercial doesn’t offer terrazzo, Bohrer has put a lot of thought into adding it. “It’s a real risk to get into terrazzo, as the floors are very expensive,” he explains. “If something goes wrong, it’s hard to fix and costly. We just don’t have that experience yet. We don’t jump into things too quickly. I think part of the reason we are still around is that we adapt slowly; we evolve; we take baby steps.”
FORWARD LOOKING
Bohrer is very grateful for the team he has around him. “We have very, very good people,” he notes. That doesn’t mean, of course, that assembling that team is always easy. “In the last five to seven years, we have seen a different attitude towards work and careers,” he explains. “So, it’s been very difficult to find people like our traditional employees, people who trust us and who we can trust. Today, someone might get hired, stay for two months, collect their pay and leave. Hiring has become more of a headache recently than before.”
While succession is not something that needs to be worked out yet, Bohrer reports that he is “giving it a lot of thought because it will be on the table soon.” He adds, “Right now, we’re humming along just fine.” Bohrer’s son Scott is the manager of the San Diego operation. His other son, Adam, was in the business previously but now works for the Idaho Department of Commerce.
Looking ahead, Bohrer doesn’t foresee adding more locations within the next five years, but he is hoping to take marketshare with the locations that he has now and bring the weaker locations more in line with the stronger ones. He may also consider launching into new product offerings.
What Bohrer does not spend his time worrying about are the large consolidated firms in the commercial flooring market today. “I think they move too fast,” he says. “It’s very difficult to run an office at a distance in this business because the relationships are so important. This is a people business.”
Wall 2 Wall Commercial is a Mondo dealer. “There aren’t that many of us,” says Bohrer. “We have the territory for Idaho, Utah and Montana. We were also able to get the Mondo dealership in Southern California.”
There are several sport segments in which rubber is used: as gym flooring; in fitness, weight and exercise space, often in school and military facilities; and for running tracks.
Wall 2 Wall’s California business is pretty much all sport, though not Mondo only. The company considers the sport category a sub-specialty.
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Related Topics:Starnet, Lumber Liquidators