There seems to be a feeling among many traditional hand made rug importers that machine made rugs are not worth the money to make them. I think they are wrong. Machine made rugs fit very nicely in the rug world.

If you could follow the cost and improved construction of machine made rugs over the last 10 years you would see that they have become a terrific value. The reduction in the cost of raw material and the enhanced technology used to produce these rugs has reduced the retail cost substantially. The majority of these rugs are produced in Polypropylene fiber. Polypropylene is fade resistant, soil resistant and if it is constructed properly will give the consumer a terrific bang for their buck. This rug category could be called "Expendable Fashion" because consumers can change them out at a reasonable cost after they have served a useful life.

There are two types of construction of Polypropylene rugs. The first is BCF (bulk continuous filament) and the other is a two plied continuous filament heat set yarn (two strands of yarn are twisted together and set at a temperature to give it a permanent twist). Most inexpensive rugs are BCF and these rugs are produced to sell very cheaply, therefore they do not hold up as well. On the other hand Polypropylene two ply heat set rugs normally look better and perform well. Not only do they perform better they look better over the life of the installation. A second standard for a gauge in quality is how many tufts there are in a square meter. Unfortunately the information you receive is not always accurate and the real test is; if it does not feel dense it is not. The bottom line is if you are looking for quality polypropylene rug make sure it is heat set and give the rug the feel test.

There are many machine made rugs that are produced in a Rayon like fiber, (so called art silk, faux silk), these rugs are beautiful and frequently copies of traditional oriental rugs. Although they do not stand up as well as Polypropylene they are very pretty. They also fall into the Expendable Fashion category.
There are rugs made of cotton, sometimes hard to clean.

There are shag rugs made of a combination of Polypropylene and Polyester, these are very pretty, easy to spot clean but sometimes difficult to vacuum.

Lastly there are machine made Wool rugs. Wool is the finest fiber in the world but can be expensive. If you are looking at machine made wool rugs you must consider hand tufted wool. Hand tufted wool rugs can look as beautiful as hand knotted and give a tremendous value for the money.