News flash: The countertop industry is confusing! Even for the professionals that operate in the construction industry, the factors that drive pricing, lead times, and material availability are mostly opaque. For homeowners that require the services of the countertop industry once every 10-20 years, “nightmare” is a description we hear frequently. For the average homeowner, simply understanding where to start the countertop purchasing process, let alone navigating its idiosyncracies, can prove a feat unto itself.
If you’re looking for guidance on how to buy countertops, you’re not alone. “Who sells countertops?” is one of Google’s most queried countertop-related searches, and as you’ve probably already discovered, the results are anything but straightforward.
For our readers interested in a quick answer, we shan’t bury the lede: Countertop retailers sell countertops. But this is a broad category. Countertop retailers include big-box stores (like Home Depot, Lowe’s, Floor & Decor, Ikea, etc.), Kitchen & Bath Showrooms (usually independently owned stores that sell flooring, cabinets, tile, and other interior finishes), and Countertop Fabrication Shops (the folks that actually cut and install countertops).
This article is intended to introduce you to the world of countertops: How it all works, who sells them, and who you should be buying from.
But first, let's identify the players that make up this mystifying industry…
The Countertop Supply Chain 101: A Who's Who in the Countertop Industry
So that you can better navigate the countertop industry, let’s get a better understanding of the groups that comprise its supply chain.
At its core, the countertop supply chain follows the same pattern of commerce that you’re probably familiar with:
Manufacturers (produce goods) => Distributors (provide warehousing, transport, and fulfillment)= > Retailers (where you spend your hard-earned money) => Customers (the handsome individual reading this article)
Manufacturers:
At the top of the supply chain, manufacturers produce the surfacing materials that are used in the creation of countertops— namely natural stone and man-made stone slabs.
Manufacturers of natural stones like granite, marble, and quartzite quarry giant blocks of stone from the earth and refine them down into giant stone slabs.
Manufacturers of man-made stones like quartz, sintered stone, and porcelain create solid stone slabs from scratch using stone aggregates and resin.
Both types of manufacturers sell their respective slab goods in bulk to distributors.
Distributors:
You'll know you're at a distributor location if you see hundreds of stone slabs neatly displayed. If you see countertops being cut, you're at a countertop fabrication shop!
Distributors in the countertop industry warehouse stone slabs and sell them to retailers (who then turn them into your countertops). Seems like status quo distributor behavior, right?
Here’s where it gets confusing: Unlike in other industries, distributors in the countertop industry also play a customer-facing role. Distributors act as showrooms where customers can view stone slabs and select them for use in their countertop projects.
If you think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense. Stone slabs are very large, heavy, and fragile, and most retailers don't have the floor space or the specialty equipment to handle and showcase the thousands of stone slab options available on the market.
Instead, retailers can send their customers directly to a distributor to view stone slabs and make selections. As we’ll discuss later, this creates a ton of customer confusion. For now, just remember this: though you the customer can view stone slabs directly at a distributor’s warehouse, they will not sell you the stone slabs directly, nor will they provide you pricing.
After all, distributors sell slabs to retailers. The retailers sell you, the customer, the installed countertops.
Retailers
Many companies can sell you countertops, but not all retailers are equal…
Big Box Stores and Kitchen & Bath Showrooms:
Countertop retailers come in many shapes and sizes. You can buy countertops from your neighborhood big box store, or you can buy countertops from the independent “kitchen and bath” retailer down the street. You can even buy countertops from certain furniture stores!
(Left) K&B Showrooms offer tile, fixtures, flooring, and cabinets in addition to countertops. (Right) We've all seen the countertop display area at Home Depot. Hard to believe they sell billions in countertops annually, right?
But before you do, think about this… have you ever seen countertops being cut at Home Depot or Lowe’s? Is it likely that Ikea has offsite facilities for warehousing stone slabs and fabricating countertops for your kitchen? They certainly could… after all, these companies are behemoths and have the resources to do so. But are countertops their core business?
So how do Home Depot and Lowe’s combine to sell up to 1/3rd of all the countertops purchased in the United States? Well, it’s largely for the same reason you're reading this very article… The countertop industry is confusing, and many homeowners don't know how or where to buy countertops. When information is scarce, branding wins the day.
The truth is that most countertop retailers simply fulfill customer orders. In reality, these companies buy countertops from the same places that you can (and should) buy from.
Countertop Fabricators:
The purest form of retail in the countertop industry is “Countertop Fabricators.” Countertop Fabricators are the folks that turn stone slabs into countertops, and they’ll sell directly to you, the end consumer.
If you’re not buying directly from a countertop fabricator, you’re almost certainly paying for an additional and unnecessary markup on your countertops.
Countertop Fabricators don't always offer the retail shopping experience that you might want, but no other form of retailer is going to beat their pricing.
Agents:
Agents encompass a broad swath of construction professionals who purchase countertops on behalf of homeowners. Agents mostly include Interior Designers, General Contractors, and Remodelers.
For homeowners that are unfamiliar with the inner working of the construction industry, it’s often more convenient to contract with a professional to manage the various aspects of a construction project. The professional that you hire should understand the roles that each of the construction trades occupies and the order in which the work needs to be performed. They should also have relationships with reliable subcontractors necessary to complete your project. Depending on the scope of your project, hiring a construction professional can save you a lot of time, money, and stress.
For larger-scale remodels and new construction projects, many homeowners lean on their contracted professionals’ expertise when it comes to procuring countertops. Still, there is a common misconception among homeowners that only construction professionals can access the world of countertops. In fact, just the opposite is true.
70% of all countertops purchased in the US are purchased directly by homeowners, and replacing (or buying new) countertops can be a simple project if you know where to turn. For many homeowners, it may still be more convenient to hire a professional to handle the task so long as procuring countertops is only one aspect within a much broader scope of work.
Homeowners, however, should understand that if you’re relying on a professional to procure your countertops, either additional markups will be built into their cost, or else you’ll be charged for the time and effort spent on your behalf.
As a final piece of advice, if the scope of your project is only to replace your countertops, there is absolutely no reason you should pay anyone to manage the project on your behalf. This would be like hiring a catering company to make you a sandwich. It’s overkill, and it’s unnecessary.
CountertopSmart’s role in the supply chain:
Now that you have a high-level understanding of how the countertop supply chain functions and who sells countertops, let’s discuss CountertopSmart’s role in the industry.
CountertopSmart is a technology company that aims to simplify the countertop purchasing process. Our site allows you to compare instant countertop prices from top countertop fabricators in your area. In under ten minutes, you receive accurate pricing on installed countertops for your project from the top countertop fabricators in your area.
Through price competition and transparency, CountertopSmart reduces the cost of countertops and removes stress from the countertop purchasing process. Our platform was built for homeowners, and no prior countertop experience is required.
As a final few words of advice: Regardless of where or through whom you ultimately buy your countertops, you can always use CountertopSmart to compare pricing and ensure you’re getting a fair price from your selected countertop provider. It’s free to use so take advantage of it!