Carpet Foundation to scrap sales levy
The move is part of financial restructuring and membership growth.
The Carpet Foundation is to abolish its sales levy for retail members and switch to a fixed £35 a month membership fee.
The move is designed to make the organisation more appealing to larger retailers who declined to join because of the 1% sales levy on sales of the Carpet Foundation's six manufacturing members.
From 1 August retailers will pay £35 a month per store while manufacturers will also turn away from a turnover based fee to an annual charge of £10,000.
The moves are designed to rebalance the contributions of retailers and manufacturers and three manufacturers have already agreed to join on 1 August as a result of the changes. More are expected to follow.
Initial response from retailers has been very encouraging, according to Andrew Stanbridge, Carpet Foundation chief executive, but he expects some retailers will leave because of the changes. 'We will lose some smaller retailers but we should gain larger, more upmarket retailers who will now pay substantially less than they would under the levy scheme.
'The new system is fairer and without change there would be no Carpet Foundation.'