Casey Johnson worked for two of the biggest floor-covering manufacturers in the world for nearly a quarter of a century before he decided to branch out with his own venture.
With his son CJ, Johnson bought and managed real estate where he saw firsthand the advantages of the luxury vinyl plank and tiles he had helped sell in his previous job with Shaw Industries.
"We had a lot of rental properties, and carpet would have to be replaced every nine months," Johnson recalled. "Then we started putting in vinyl tile floors instead, and I am yet to replace any of these floors since."
Johnson, who had planned to focus only on real estate investment and management, launched his flooring company in 2012 to capitalize on the appeal of hardwood floors using luxury vinyl tiles and planks as an easier, simpler and more flexible alternative to traditional hardwood floors.
The company is known as Happy Feet International, which Johnson came up with during a visit to a Chinese supplier in March 2012, when he needed a brand name to put on his products and didn't have the time to conduct a major brand study.
"Happy Feet is based upon happy customers and happy employees, and it seems to work," Johnson said. "By nature, I am a competitive person who wants to impress the customer and the people I work with, and that's what our company is based around."
Over the past decade, using his industry knowledge from his previous years at both Shaw Industries and Beaulieu Carpets, Johnson has built a growing nationwide vinyl tile business using five manufacturers in China, two in Korea and one each in Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as the United States. The product is shipped to five warehouses the company maintains in the Chattanooga area. The local warehouses, which collectively have 225,000 square feet, have each been upgraded over the past decade to handle the growing volume of sales.
Happy Feet expects to generate sales this year of nearly 50 million feet of vinyl flooring. Johnson said Happy Feet sales surged 43% in the pandemic, and he expects even higher sales in 2022.
"Our goal is to ship 70 million feet next year, and 100 million feet by 2023," Johnson said.
The Chattanooga firm, which has nearly 100 employees handling distribution, sales and shipping, has benefited by the growing popularity of vinyl flooring, which has quadrupled in sales over the past decade.
Happy Feet workers James Odum, Amber McDermott and Will Hullender, from left, stand behind a pallet / Contributed photoLTV market surges
Industry analysts estimate LTV sales in the U.S. totaled nearly $5.6 billion in 2020 and will grow to $14.6 billion by 2026.
The vinyl tile and planks are made up of individual squares or rectangles of varying sizes which are assembled by the user during installation. The product first hit the market in the 1960s, and by the 1970s it was sold as an improved form of the sheet vinyl, with a traditional hardwood floor's appearance. In the 2000s, many contractors grew to prefer the planks and their comparatively easy glue-down installation to the more expensive alternatives such as carpet, hardwood or laminate.
The product does not accumulate dust particles and is generally water-resistant. Happy Feet also offers a stain-resistant feature known as ZeroMark.
Growing product line
Although Happy Feet is a relatively small player in the market compared to the flooring industry giants just to the south in Dalton, Georiga, Johnson said Happy Feet offers floors for every walk of life. Casey and CJ Johnson began their business by purchasing small quantities of a singular product line. Today, Happy Feet carries 30 product lines for commercial and residential use. Within those, Happy Feet offers 245 varieties, given the different designs and colors.
The company has been working to meet customer demand as supply chain issues have slowed other parts of the United States. So far through the pandemic, Happy Feet has been able to use its warehouse capacity and Johnson's shipping and production prowess to maintain inventory to meet the demand, although the company isn't still touting 24-hour turnaround in order shipments.
Johnson said for the first eight years of his business, he averaged paying $2,700 per container for shipments, but that rose in the past year to as much as $18,000 a container - "if you can even get a container."
Despite such challenges, Johnson said 95% of orders are shipped out within 48 hours to distributors, wholesalers and buying groups across the nation.
"Service is our key, since we don't have a big, well-known name like Shaw or Mohawk," Johnson said. "We hustle to meet the customers' needs, and that's been the key to our growth."
To aid in the company's growth, Happy Feet added three new associates this month - Mariah Ramsey, Donald Inserra and Steve Addison.
Addison, a 36-year veteran of the flooring industry, is stepping into the position of multi-family specifier, responsible for selling flooring to regional and national dealers with a focus on multi-family buildings. Inserra, who has worked in the industry for 15 years, joins Happy Feet as a territory sales manager, responsible for selling products to specialty retailers, commercial and multi-family end users. Ramsey, another industry veteran, also joins Happy Feet as a territory sales manager and will be responsible for sales, business development and building relationships with existing customers in both residential and commercial flooring.
"We've made a lot of investments to grow this business, and we expect to continue to grow with building activity remaining strong," Johnson said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340