How to Buy Tile Online: 5 Tips from a Professional

Everyone from do-it-yourselfers to architects to commercial tile installers is considering whether buying tile online is the right way to go. After exploring the subject in our own business and talking with others who have experimented with buying and selling tile online, here are five tips for a successful tile purchase online.

1. Check the return and refund policy. There are many fly-by-night companies that will sell you tile at incredible prices, but what happens if there’s a problem? If the website doesn’t say how you can return it, then you probably can’t. And remember, most companies won’t provide a full refund on returns; you’ll be required to pay a restock fee. And in most cases, you’ll be required to pay shipping to get the material back.
2. Find out where the company is located. I always check the website for a physical address. If the company doesn’t provide one, go somewhere else. Why? Chances are, you’re dealing with a middle man who is simply brokering a sale, or worse, a fraudster. Legitimate businesses have no reason to hide. If the website does provide an address, look it up on google maps. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve discovered that an e-commerce business is really just someone’s basement.
3. Request a sample. One of the best ways to cut through risk is to request a sample before you make a purchase. If you are buying tile for a kitchen backsplash, a bathroom floor, or even just an entryway, you want to make sure you are ordering the right stuff before you ship hundreds of pounds of tile (remember, tile weighs about 4-6 pounds a square foot, so the freight costs add up fast). Requesting a tile sample is also a good litmus test of the business. If they refuse to send you a sample, that’s a red flag. In our case, we’ll happily send a free sample, though we may ask the customer to cover the cost of shipping. And finally, the obvious: although you can learn a lot about a tile online, you really can’t make a final judgment about color and quality until you have a piece in your hands.
4. Check third party referrals and reviews. Many e-commerce sites have built in reviews and customer testimonials. Read them! You can learn a lot about the company and the pitfalls to avoid. But don’t stop there. You should take it one step further and search (with google, bing, etc.) for additional customer comments outside of their website. Remember, they can clean up the comments reviewers leave on their own site, but they don’t control what people say about them on Yelp or the Better Business Bureau. If they don’t show up on any of these sites, caveat emptor!
5. Compare pricing (with shipping) to local sources. Tile purchases are never impulse buys. You don’t just decide one day to remodel your kitchen and the next day go out and spend a few hundred or a thousand dollars on tile. This means that you have the time to comparison shop. Many online tile sellers lure you in with remarkable prices that hide the eventual costs. For instance, you can find porcelain tile for 99 cents a square foot all over the internet. However, after shipping and handling, in many instances you’ll find the price has doubled or even tripled. With a local store, the shipping and handling is already included in the price, and you can also verify that what you are buying is actually what they claim (Does it really qualify as porcelain, or is it a lower grade ceramic? Can it be used outside safely?) Even if the online price is 15-20% lower, it may still be worth it to buy local to insure that you have some recourse if anything goes wrong.

Buying tile online is sure to become more common over the coming years. Savvy consumers will keep these 5 tips in mind to avoid the headache of figuring out what to do with a palletful of junk.