Wanted: Bedding dealers willing to share 'secrets'
By David Perry, Executive editor -- Furniture Today, June 24, 2002
Allow me, if you will, to share a pet peeve this week: Retailers who won't talk to us.
You are probably thinking that, with all the charm and friendliness we bring to this venture each week, retailers everywhere would be eager to tell us about their bedding successes.
If you are thinking that, you are wrong. A number of bedding retailers don't want to talk.
Why the tight lips? Retailers generally say they don't want to reveal any secrets to their competition. If they tell us what is working, they say, their competitors will just knock them off and those promotions and business strategies suddenly won't be so effective.
With all due respect to our reticent retail friends, that is a weak argument.
At least that's what some of our more forthcoming retail friends say. There are no secrets in the bedding retail marketplace, they contend.
Think about it. Stores are open to the public. The products are sitting there for examination. Prices are obvious — or easy to obtain. There is absolutely no secret about the products that are on the floor.
Similarly, the promotions are out there for everyone to see. Again, there are no secrets.
Ah, but no one can tell how well the promotions work, my reticent friends say. Balderdash, my forthcoming friends respond. Bedding sales representatives, and even factory executives, are in the stores all the time. They know what is working and what's not working. It's their job.
Given the collegial atmosphere of the bedding industry and the armies of sales reps from more than a dozen leading producers that march across the bedding battlefields each day, not to mention the frequent forays of line officers and bedding generals, not much of consequence escapes detection.
There are some things, of course, that aren't obvious. A retailer's bottom line is one of them. Few privately held retailers want to share that kind of information.
But we aren't trying to get that information for our stories. What we are after is the bigger picture: How retailers find success in a highly competitive marketplace.
Retailers love to read about other retailers. At some point, that means reading about themselves.
Hey, we won't bite.
If you are willing to share your retail story, please give us a call at (336) 605-1114, or e-mail us at dperry@reedbusiness.com. (Note: That is a new e-mail address.)
We like to think that we are helping, in some way, to build a better industry. Retailers who share their successes provide positive role models that help boost the overall professionalism of the industry. We think everyone benefits as our industry improves its performance — and its image.
