Pittsburgh Carpet Chain Closing Down Business

Pittsburgh, PA, Sept. 17, 2009--Carpet retailer Roth Carpet is going out of business, thanks to a lingering recession and competition from big box stores.

The Monroeville-based retailer has begun liquidation sales at its three locations -- Monroeville, Mt. Lebanon and Ross -- with plans to get rid of hundreds of rolls of carpets, thousands of room-size remnants and piles of Oriental rugs as quickly as possible. The process could be completed in four to six weeks.

Richard Roth, whose grandfather and father found an opportunity cleaning carpets drenched during Pittsburgh's 1936 St. Patrick's Day flood, told the Pittsburg Post-Gazette that the economic downturn of the past year was too much to handle.

While department stores moved away from the business, home centers such as Home Depot and Lowe's moved in.

Roth estimated flooring centers used to have about 75 percent of the market but now control about 60 percent.

At its peak, Roth Carpet achieved $10 million in annual sales. "They're nowhere near that now," he said.

Nationally, the floor covering business is down almost 20 percent this year based on U.S. Census Bureau numbers, according to Santo Torcivia, president of Market Insights/Torcivia, a flooring industry research and consulting firm in Reading.

However, Torcivia thinks things have hit bottom and forecasts a turnaround is coming.

Even so, he said it will be "very slow and agonizing."

The decision to close the business means an end to the colorful marketing that the Roth family has brought to the region over the decades. Mr. Roth said his father, Bernard, was an early user of jingles -- "ding-a-ling-a-ling, give Roth a ring ..." -- and night sales with search lights and giveaways of everything from lottery tickets to kielbasa.

If he remembers right, his father once rented the Civic Arena, put out carpets and had staff on roller skates taking orders.

"Anything to stand out and get people's attention," he said.