I guess my only conundrum was that I ordered (2) full pieces of their product, assuming it had the click lock to see how well it locks together, and to feel the scope of a full sized 1' x 2' pieces. Charging me $2.50 for a cut up piece of their flooring, causes me concern. If I was promoting this product, wouldn't it be wise to show their entire piece, to show its full glory? In other words, they seemed to me to "cheap out" towards a potential customer.
Yeah, I may have ordered the wrong product, but again, they had asked for all my information, so why not give me a call to confirm what I was looking at, what I ordered, and provide good customer support.
Yeah, maybe I'm thinking outside the box?
Have, first I hate that you're upset and I wish I could do something to make it right for you, BUT...
Like 99.9% of the larger flooring manufacturers, due to the sheer volume and cost of samples, Mannington does not administer or ship the samples ordered from their website. The information goes to a 3rd party company. The 3rd party company processes and ships the order. If you answer the questions about wanting someone to call you regarding your project, that lead information gets sent to the closest displaying dealers nearest your location. In other words, while the samples are ordered, and the information is gathered on Mannington's website, Mannington has little to no interaction with that information. Remember, they are a global company, just like Mohawk, Shaw, and Tarkett. This is how ALL of them administer their consumer sample programs today. In fact, we, as a distributor, cannot call and order these type of consumer samples since Mannington sends the raw flooring materials to the 3rd party company who actually makes and cuts the samples. We only have access to the large, backed samples that are in the display itself. Typical cost per sample on those is $30 - $50.
I have had some interactions with the sample process myself, and I can tell you there are people who literally order 8, 10, 15 samples at a time. I've had flooring dealers who have thought like you and tried to order samples, thinking they were full size pieces, to finish a job. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but the reality is, the system is extremely automated with very little interaction occurring with a real human being. So, you can imagine the chaos and cost that would result if Mannington WAS to ship full size pieces. There would be some idiot, I can assure you, sitting there ordering a few samples a day until they had enough to do their job. You can't even go into a box store and get a full-size sample, let alone one for $2.50.
The Max product, which sounds more like what you were interested in, is going to retail for between $5 and $7 / sq. foot. You can see, selling a sample at $2.50 plus free shipping, they ain't making any money whatsoever. The $2.50 they are collecting is most likely going to the 3rd party company to actually cut, package, and ship the sample.
I will tell you that one thing Mannington did differently than the others though, is that their samples are larger, and in many cases twice as large as any other manufacturer even though they are cut samples. Mannington's policy is the sample will be full width, so in your case 12", and will be 1' foot in length. Many of the others don't even provide a sample that shows full width, let alone full length. You're lucky if you get a 6"x6" pc. on a tile look. If you want to test it order a sample from Mohawk or Shaw, or even go in and see what the boxes have to offer.
I have had people literally do these things in the past when Mannington Commercial offered free samples (I actually believe, they still do). Order samples online and state they needed to be full size pieces for an "architectural submittal" and request 2nd day air shipping. Then get called on a claim for a "dye lot" issue, because they were actually using the samples to finish a job instead of ordering another carton of material. They had got the pieces, peeled the label off the back and glued 'em down. Not just once either. So, there really are people out there like that and it's the reason they do it the way they do. Hope that helps explain a little about the process right, wrong or indifferent.
