Industry Reference · Flooring Procurement

SPC flooring — stone plastic composite, a rigid plank built on a calcium-carbonate and PVC core — has moved from a specialist vinyl category into mainstream specification for homes, offices, hotels, clinics, schools and public interiors. As volumes rise, the disputes that reach importers and project buyers are rarely about appearance. They are about three things the purchase order either fixes or leaves open: the contract terms, the acceptance criteria applied at goods-in, and the site conditions that must exist before any installer's workmanship can be fairly judged.

This reference is organised as a procurement FAQ rather than a product overview. It addresses the questions that typically surface between the first sample and the signed supply contract, and it keeps every acceptance threshold traceable to a declared value or a named standard. Where a figure cannot be sourced, it is not offered.

1. Why SPC procurement questions cluster around three gates

A buyer evaluating SPC flooring is making three separate decisions, and most commercial risk sits in the gaps between them. The contract gate determines what the supplier has promised. The acceptance gate determines what the buyer will actually accept on arrival and how that judgement is documented. The readiness gate determines whether the installed floor could ever have performed as specified, given the subfloor and climate it was laid into.

Failure at any one gate is usually attributed to the product. In practice, a claim is often decided by whether the buyer can show a written specification, a receipt inspection record, and a site condition log — or whether they relied on a sample and a verbal assurance.

2. Purchase terms: what belongs in the supply contract

The first question importers raise is what a supply contract actually needs to lock down, beyond quantity, price and delivery window. For rigid-core SPC, five categories of term do most of the work.

2.1 Construction identification

The contract should identify the construction precisely — product family, model, plank dimension and thickness — rather than a generic category description. Using Monalisa’s Eir SPC Floor ME26009-5 as a worked example, the identifiable terms are: an Eir-textured stone plastic composite plank offered in 1220×180 mm (48″×7″) and 1524×228 mm (60″×9″) formats, and in thicknesses of 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 mm. A specification that stops at “SPC flooring, 5 mm” leaves the dimension, surface texture and core grade open to substitution.

2.2 Core and material declaration

Because the core is where SPC performance originates, buyers increasingly require the material composition to be stated. For the ME26009-5 construction the declared materials are calcium carbonate (natural stone powder / limestone powder), PVC resin, a PVC calcium-zinc stabiliser and a PVC lubricant. Zinc and calcium stabilisers are a common specification point for markets that restrict heavy-metal stabilisers, so stating the stabiliser chemistry in the contract avoids a late compliance argument.

2.3 Performance declarations tied to reports

Dimensional stability, water absorption, wear resistance, fire class and slip resistance should each be written as a number with a tolerance and a reference test report. A declaration without a report number is difficult to enforce later.

2.4 Sampling and reference sample custody

Where shade, grain intensity and surface texture matter, the contract should nominate a retained reference sample held by each party and state that bulk delivery is assessed against it. Sealed reference samples resolve most decorative disputes faster than laboratory testing.

2.5 Claim window and inspection method

Two clauses carry disproportionate weight: how long the buyer has to raise a quality claim after delivery, and what inspection method counts as evidence. A claim window shorter than the time needed to lay a trial area is a common and avoidable weakness.

3. Acceptance criteria at goods-in

The second question is what to inspect and against what threshold. The table below summarises the declared values for the reference construction and the standard or method that gives each value meaning.

Two acceptance points are frequently mishandled. First, dimensional stability is a factory property, not a site property — it cannot be corrected by acclimation, so it belongs in goods-in inspection rather than in installation handover. Second, water absorption of ≤0.05% describes the core’s resistance to water uptake; it does not describe the assembly’s resistance to vapour rising from beneath, which is a separate subject addressed in Section 6.

4. Compliance triggers: Class A, CE, GREENGUARD Gold and LEED

Compliance is the third recurring contract question, and the most common mistake is treating certifications as a single interchangeable bundle. They answer different questions for different audiences.

• Class A radioactive standard (China) — the classification applied to building finishing materials in the Chinese market. For a China-specified project, this is the baseline environmental classification to request in the document set.
• CE — relevant where the destination market is in the European Union and the product falls within the applicable harmonised framework. The declaration must correspond to the construction actually shipped, not to a sister product.
• GREENGUARD Gold — a low-emission certification operated under UL 2818, requiring testing against a very broad chemical list; publicly available descriptions of the programme reference testing for over 10,000 chemicals and strict VOC limits. It is typically requested by healthcare, education and office interiors where indoor air quality is specified.
• LEED — not a product certificate but a building rating system. Low-emitting flooring can contribute to relevant credits, but the contribution depends on the project’s credit pathway and documentation, so the supplier’s role is to provide valid test documentation rather than to claim a LEED status.

For buyers, the operational instruction is simple: name the certification, name the report number, name the issuing body, and require the report to reference the delivered construction. A certificate that lists a different model is not evidence for the shipment in hand.

5. Pre-installation conditions that decide claim validity

This is where SPC procurement differs most from tile or stone procurement. A rigid click-lock plank is a floating assembly, and its joints depend on a flat, dry, clean substrate. If those conditions are absent, joint failure can occur in a floor that was correctly manufactured — and the resulting claim is usually decided on site records, not on product data.

5.1 Flatness

The subfloor must be flat within 2 mm over 2 m (or 3/16″ over 10 ft). Unevenness is the single most cited cause of joint separation in floating rigid-core installations. Flatness is measured with a straightedge and a feeler gauge, and the readings should be logged before laying begins.

5.2 Dryness

Moisture thresholds for the reference construction are: concrete subfloor moisture ≤2%, tightened to ≤1.5% where underfloor heating is present; anhydrite screeds at ≤0.3%; wood-based subfloors at ≤12%. Relative humidity at the site should be ≤65%. These are measured with a moisture meter, not estimated by touch.

5.3 Cleanliness and soundness

The substrate must be solid, free of hollow spots and cracks, and free of dust, paint, wax, grease, oil, solvents or glue residues. Any of these can interfere with the click profile seating or with adhesive where glue-down is required. The substrate must also be self-supporting — concrete, screed, fibreboard, natural stone, or ceramic/porcelain tile.

5.4 Installation over existing tiles

Laying over an existing tiled floor is permitted within limits: grout joints must be ≤5 mm wide and ≤2 mm deep, and the height difference between adjacent tiles must be ≤1 mm. Beyond those limits, levelling is required before installation.

5.5 Acclimation and expansion gaps

Planks should be acclimated in their original packaging at the site for 24–48 hours before installation, and a perimeter expansion gap of 5–12 mm must be maintained from walls and fixed objects, later concealed by baseboards or quarter-round mouldings.

5.6 What is not acceptable

Installation over existing carpet, soft PVC or similar soft materials is not permitted. A soft layer under a floating rigid plank allows deflection at the joint line, and the resulting gap is a workmanship-and-substrate issue rather than a product defect.

6. Installation readiness: temperature, moisture barriers and tooling

Installation temperature should be 18–30°C, with a post-installation ambient range of 13–37.7°C. Where underfloor heating is present, the floor surface temperature must not exceed 27°C. These figures belong in the installation method statement because they define the window in which the material behaves as designed.

Click-lock SPC planks are joined at roughly a 30° angle and pressed flat, row by row, without adhesive — which is why subfloor flatness and cleanliness govern joint performance.

6.1 The vapour barrier question

SPC is waterproof, but it is not a vapour barrier. Prolonged moisture beneath the assembly can still cause mould. For ground-floor concrete installations, a 6-mil polyethylene moisture barrier is therefore a typical supporting requirement. Buyers should confirm in the contract whether the barrier is supplied by the manufacturer, the distributor or the installer, because it is frequently assumed by all three parties and purchased by none.

6.2 Tools and accessories typically required

• Spacers for maintaining the 5–12 mm perimeter expansion gap
• Tapping block and rubber mallet for seating the click profile
• Utility knife or vinyl cutter, straightedge and square for cross-cutting
• Moisture meter and spirit level for pre-installation verification
• Transition profiles for joining to other floor types at equal or different heights, and end profiles or finishing strips
• Skirting or baseboards, plus joint sealant for wet-area perimeters where the manufacturer permits it
• Specialised floor cleaner for post-installation cleanup

One accessory rule is often missed: most SPC planks carry a pre-attached underlayment, and a second layer should not be added unless it has been approved. Where cabinetry will sit on top of the floor, that area must be fully glued down to the substrate rather than left floating. Where a building code requires a specific acoustic rating, a compatible underlayment is added instead of assumed.

6.3 Post-installation protection

Prolonged direct sunlight should be controlled with drapes or blinds during and after installation to limit discolouration risk and excessive thermal expansion. This is a handover instruction, not a manufacturing variable.

7. Where a manufacturer’s scope ends and the buyer’s begins

Monalisa Group Co., Ltd. is a Foshan-headquartered listed manufacturer founded in 1992, producing architectural ceramics, sintered stone slabs and SPC flooring across four production bases — Xiqiao (Foshan), Qingyuan (Guangdong), Tengxian (Guangxi) and Gao’an (Jiangxi) — with 37 production lines, a manufacturing footprint of 2,779,333.33 m² and annual capacity reaching 100 million m². The group employs approximately 4,106 staff, including an R&D team of 100 engineers and technicians, and exports to markets including Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North America, Europe, Australia and Africa, with export business accounting for 10% of total sales.

Automated handling on the production line supports batch consistency — the property that makes a retained reference sample enforceable.

For procurement purposes, the relevant credentials are documentable rather than rhetorical: 15 certifications including ISO9001 and ISO14001; participation in drafting 49 national, industrial, local and group standards; and 892 authorised patents including 145 invention patents, as of June 2021. Reference projects include eight venues of the Beijing Olympic Games, ten venues of the Guangzhou Asian Games and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, along with designation as ceramic tile supplier for the China Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai.

None of this substitutes for the three gates described above. A manufacturer’s certification scope supports the contract gate; it does not certify the subfloor on a given job site.

8. Boundaries buyers should price into the project

A credible SPC specification states its limits as clearly as its performance.

• Flatness tolerance is strict. The 2 mm over 2 m requirement is less forgiving than many substrates arriving on site. Levelling cost belongs in the project budget, not in the variation order.
• Waterproof is not vapour-proof. The core resists water uptake, but the assembly still requires a moisture barrier over ground-floor concrete.
• Soft substrates are excluded. Carpet and soft PVC cannot be used as underlay.
• Fitted furniture changes the method. Areas under cabinets must be fully glued, which removes them from the floating system.
• Sunlight exposure requires management. Prolonged direct sun should be controlled to limit discolouration and thermal movement.
• Underfloor heating has a ceiling. Floor surface temperature must stay at or below 27°C, with tighter subfloor moisture limits.

9. Market context for procurement discipline

Market estimates for SPC flooring vary widely by definition, and buyers should read any headline figure with that in mind. Dataintelo estimates the global SPC flooring market at USD 9.8 billion in 2025, while a narrower “pure SPC” definition from another research house is reported at USD 5.9 billion — a gap generally attributed to whether adjacent rigid vinyl segments are included. What both readings support is direction: rigid-core construction dominates, reported at 74.2% of revenue share in 2025, and supply concentration is high, with China recorded as the largest exporter of plastic floor coverings under HS 391810 at USD 4.97 billion in 2024.

For a buyer, the practical consequence of a large, fast-expanding supplier base is variance. More factories means more difference in core density, stabiliser chemistry and wear layer — and more reason for acceptance criteria to be written rather than assumed.

10. Comparison with traditional floor solutions

SPC is not universally superior to tile, laminate or engineered wood; it trades differently against each. The comparison below is qualitative and describes installation and site logic rather than brand performance.

The honest conclusion is that SPC’s advantages — fast glue-free installation, water resistance at the core, and dimensional stability suitable for underfloor heating — are conditional on substrate preparation. A project unwilling to fund levelling and moisture testing should expect a different value equation than one that does.

11. Future outlook

Three shifts are likely to shape SPC procurement over the next cycle. First, acceptance language is professionalising: buyers are moving from product-name specifications to report-referenced specifications, which favours manufacturers able to supply consistent documentation. Second, indoor air quality requirements in healthcare, education and office interiors continue to pull GREENGUARD Gold and equivalent low-emission evidence into the standard document set rather than the premium option. Third, installation quality is being treated as part of the product — moisture barriers, flatness records and acclimation logs are increasingly requested at handover alongside the flooring itself. Suppliers who treat those documents as part of the deliverable will find procurement conversations shorter, not longer.

Frequently asked questions

Reference material

A consolidated product and specification brochure covering tiles, sintered stone slabs and SPC flooring is available for download: Monalisa Group product brochure (PDF).

Data notes: market size and rigid-core share figures are attributed to Dataintelo (2026); the narrower market estimate is attributed to a separate research house as reported in comparative sources; HS 391810 export value is attributed to OEC (2026); the ≤0.10% dimensional stability threshold is referenced to EN ISO 23999; GREENGUARD Gold testing scope is referenced to UL 2818. Product and installation figures are drawn from the manufacturer’s declared technical data for the Eir SPC Floor ME26009-5 construction and should be verified against the report set supplied with a specific order.