Every rug needs a rug pad and let's face it, shopping for one may not be the most desirable thing on your list of things to do. Vintage rug The pad is under the rug and rarely ever seen. Since it is out of sight, out of mind, we still need to be careful in choosing the right rug pad for your rugs and floors.

Online stores have obviously become a very popular outlet for many items and rug pads are no different. If you find the right online store, you will have the best pad you can find for the money, and there are only a few of these stores around.

The problem with the rest of the online rug stores or home decor stores that offer carpet pads is that they drop ship the order to you. This means when an order comes in, they send the order to a warehouse not affiliated with them and the warehouse then processes your order and ships it to you. The online store never sees or touches the rug pad. It is just one item of hundreds or thousands that this store may offer.

The best way to buy a quality rug pad online is to make sure you are buying from a company that actually ships direct from them to you. There are very few online stores that do this and even fewer that cut to your order. Most online stores ship pre-cut and pre-packaged rug pads and I definitely shy away from this.

Pre-cut and packaged pads are folded numerous times to fit into a plastic bag and then stuck on a shelf until they are purchased. The problem here is that the folding creates very stubborn fold lines that may not come out once in your home until it is too late.

This creates an uneven looking rug, trip hazards and premature wear to your rug in the areas of the fold marks. A woman called me a few weeks ago and asked if our rug pads are folded.

I found out that she just received one that she purchased from a very popular online home decor store and the 8'x10' pad arrived folded several times in a small bag. When she unfolded the pad and put it on her floor, she noticed a grid design of raised fold marks that went through to her rug and made her rug look bumpy in many places.

Choose a company that stocks the pads in rolls, not packages. Each order is cut when they receive it, hence eliminating the folding problem. There are only a few online stores that offer rug pads in this way and if you care about the quality and condition of your pad, along with its performance once you receive it, be sure to buy your rug pad from one of the online stores that does not fold them and leave them in packages. A great test to determine if the store drop ships pre-packaged pads or not is to ask them to cut it to a specific size. If they can, then chances are the rug pads are on rolls.