In today's flooring world, price is often the driving factor for most floor covering purchases. As consumers, we naturally want the best price we can get when buying new floors. Often times we can be lured in by bargain basement pricing. But when buying flooring, consider three things; quality, service and price. You can rarely have all three. Most of the time you will only have two and sometimes only one.

Keep this in mind when shopping for flooring. If you want to buy quality flooring from a company offering great service, you will probably pay a little more for your new floors. If price is your most important factor in your floor purchase, be prepared to give up quality or service and sometimes both.

Let's talk the price of flooring. Some places sell laminate flooring for as low $.99 a square foot and some places sell laminate for $4.99 a square foot. What are you getting for $.99? Are you getting the same quality laminate flooring that sells for $4.99 some place else at a much better price? You can be sure the laminate flooring selling for $.99 is not near the quality of the $4.99 laminate. If you choose price as your priority, you will be sure to sacrifice quality. Flooring that needs to be replaced in a few years is surely not so much of a bargain if purchasing a bit more expensive and higher quality floor would have lasted 25 years. For the area in between where you can find the same flooring priced less at a bigger box store, I would be willing to bet somewhere along the lines you will sacrifice service.

While some may disagree, think of Nordstrom's versus Marshalls. They may have the same pair of jeans, yet Marshalls is priced much less – same jeans, same quality, same service right? Think again. When you go to Nordstrom's, there is always someone there to help you find what you are looking for. They have beautiful, well lit dressing rooms which are kept neat and clean. All jeans are neatly organized by style and size. If they don't have your size at one store, you can bet they will find it at another and have it shipped directly to your door. If you go to Marshalls, you will have to hunt through crowded clothing racks with no sense of order. You may find the jeans you want in every size but yours and if they don't have it, in most cases you can't get it. What about returns? Nordstrom's has one of the best reputations in the industry for returning or exchanging merchandise.

So when deciding where your next purchase will come from or what quality of floor covering you will choose, remember to consider quality, service and price. Sometimes that discount flooring can end up costing much more in the long run.