Ultimate Guide to Best Thickness for SPC Plank Product Design
Introduction to Best Thickness SPC Plank Design
Best Thickness SPC Plank Product Design
If you are a building material business considering expanding your product portfolio in luxury vinyl planks, a major consideration is to decide on the thickness in your rigid core SPC plank product for your market. As different market has different consumer preference, how well your vinyl flooring collections will sale may depend on a few different factors. Therefore in this article we briefly covers all the considerations that might effect your decision in the thickness of your SPC planks.
Shortlist of Factors to Consider
- Regional Consumer Preference
- Distribution Channel and Target Buyers
- SPC Plank Product Positioning
- Wear Layer Performance
- Raw Materials in SPC planks
5 Core Factors effecting the thickness of SPC Flooring
1. Regional market & Consumer Preference
SPC plank products is a rigid core flooring that became popular since 2017 and 2018. As it is a relatively new product in the market, different market has reacted differently towards the SPC. As a supplier in both semi-rigid LVT and rigid core SPC, we have find that different market has different preference in the thickness of SPC. For example in Canada, 5.0mm overall thickness is highly preferred, where in New Zealand 8.5mm is mostly preferred. Therefore depending on your geographical location and market area, different thickness in SPC are needed.
It is therefore worth while to study and understand what your potential competitors are offering. Mega-stores and Big-Box stores are also a good indicator in consumer preference.
2. Distribution Channel & Target Buyers
Understanding that different sales distribution channel and type of buyers also has different preference in the thickness of SPC plank products. In general, if your business are retailing towards final consumers, they may have higher preference in thicker SPC as the more thickness the SPC has, the better its overall performance and lifespan. However, if your flooring business face building projects, they may prefer thinner SPC to reduce the cost in floor covering materials.
3. SPC Plank Product Positioning
In general, the thicker the SPC, the more premium and higher quality performance it has compared to thinner SPC plank product. Therefore Brands and Flooring business sometimes use different thickness of SPC collections to make some niche in the market. For price entry a thinner SPC or even Glue Down LVT are used. For premium collections, some products even go over 10.0mm to stand out.
4. Wear Layer Performance
The wear layer performance is highly associated with the overall thickness of SPC plank products. In manufacturing practice, the thicker the wear layer, the thicker the core base of SPC is required to ensure its stability. This is mostly due to the fact that the transparent wear layer has higher density and a different material composite to the base core of SPC and has higher expansion and contraction over temperature change. The thicker core base act as a stabilizer to reinforce the wear layer from curling.
5. Raw Material in SPC Planks
When referring to the material make up of SPC, it is generally know as a Stone Plastic Composite material that is formulated in Calcium Carbonate and Polyvinyl Chloride. In rigid core SPC, the different formulated ratio between Calcium Carbonate and PVC can greatly effect the performance and overall costs. The more calcium carbonate are added, the more fragile the SPC become and needs to have thicker core base to make up the lost in performance. This is however, not recommended.
Conclusion
In short, while there are almost endless design and specifications that can be customized for your SPC plank products, the market preference, sales channel and production positioning will effect on the overall thickness of your SPC product collections. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend businesses that are entering the floor covering categories to take some market research on their geographical markets as existing players’ product offerings will generally reflect to the local market preference.
Understanding the market preference will help you to decide what the best thickness SPC plank should be. Once the overall thickness and other specifications are decided, then your business are ready to add and source rigid core SPC tiles into one of your product portfolios.
Importing rigid core vinyl floorings directly from China will proven to be a competitive strategy to access quality goods at competitive pricings. At Sreelance, we offer effective sourcing solutions to make Floor Sourcing in China Simple.
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