Carpet

Last Sunday Par and I went to one of the local Lowe's and found some carpet samples that we liked. This should be the last major purchase, and step, to finishing our basement. It's only taken 6 years to complete it. Wednesday a contractor from Lowe's came out and measured everything, then we received the quote today. I was a little shocked at the price, it was no where near the two estimates that we received earlier from Lowe's, both of which we had done using "high" numbers. At this point we are on "hold" and are going to shop around. Why is it such a difficult think to pick out something your only going to walk on occasionally?