Bedding program aims to recoup sales
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, August 5, 2002
PROVIDENCE , R.I. — To help recapture some of the promotional bedding sales that furniture retailers believe they've lost to sleep shops and others, Furniture First will roll out a private-label mattress program featuring twin and full-size sets.
Produced by Symbol Mattress, the new bedding program, the Hometown Comforts Collection under the Mattress First brand, is a mandatory $2,000 buy for Furniture First members, but it was designed to complement their existing bedding merchandising, not overhaul it.
As national bedding brands have focused on bigger and better bedding at higher price points, members say they have seen a decrease in units sold, although an increase in total bedding dollars.
Godwin's in Saginaw, Mich., operates five Mattress First shops, and while the company has seen a 21% increase in bedding sales, unit sales are actually down 10%, said Bob White, a member of the Furniture First committee that planned the new promotional program.
"That part of the furniture business is slipping away," White said of the $99 to $199 twin and full sets. "And if people are going elsewhere to buy inexpensive bedding, we might lose them as a furniture customer too."
"We're not looking to be a Simmons killer, a Sealy killer or a Serta killer," said Louis Leibowitz of Walt's Furniture and Sleep Shop, a three-store chain based in Middletown, N.J. Another of the group's organizers on this project, Leibowitz said, "We're looking to draw traffic into our stores and to make money on what has been a weak category."
Among the 50 or so Furniture First stores attending the symposium here, bedding was recognized as the most productive space in all their stores for both sales and profits.
"As much as we're selling better sleep and better bedding, a big portion of the bedding business is still a commodity," Leibowitz said. "We hope this lineup will help us take the commodity business back from the dirty-window bedding shops."
The program, supplied by eight Symbol factories, features 11 sets, including a bunkie mattress and latex foam. The retail price points for nine twin sets range from $99 to $380 or from $150 to $480 for full-size sets. Queen and king sets also are available.
"Give us a couple of slots on your floor," Leibowitz said. "Promotional bedding is a clean business that rarely comes back with problems, and it can be a profitable business."
