Sleep smarts sell sharp
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, February 24, 2002
At retail, the bedding business has abandoned its messy old bachelor pad and gone Broadway. Once dominated by department stores, dabbled with by furniture stores and discounted by mattress shops, the bedding business is now all about sleep and comfort.
As furniture stores and bedding chains recognized this, the channels of bedding distribution shifted, and furniture stores and bedding shops, not to mention a couple of warehouse clubs, hijacked a big portion of this department-store staple.
The new breed of bedding retailer saw that down-and-dirty discounting had limited potential and that department stores were the leaders in this category because women were comfortable shopping there.
About 10 years ago, furniture stores started dressing up their bedding departments, painting night scenes on the walls and ceilings, softening the lighting, piping in some soothing music. About the same time, many sleep-shop chains gave themselves a new and fresher face, with larger, nicer stores.
In these more showbiz retail environments, it soon became apparent that, contrary to the previous conventional wisdom, price was not the first or only concern of the bedding consumer. Turns out, she wanted — perhaps needed — a good night's sleep.
The brands deserve substantial credit for this transformation, too. While some of their arguments about who owned which "sleep" slogan were occasionally distracting, even amusing, the factories were certainly supporting sleep marketing, in their ad campaigns and with their step-up products. With their pillowtops and premium lines, the brands gave their stores the ammunition needed to shoot for higher price points.
Yes, the bedding consumer is only in the market for a few days, and yes, she wants a good deal. But she also wants quality and service, often more than she wants the absolute lowest price. The retailers who recognize this — sleep shops, furniture stores and even department stores — are winning with bedding.
This Retail Ideas report on bedding retailing looks at some of the best practices in this high-volume, high-profit category.
| Bob Huber, at Oskar Huber Furniture, says the bedding category is very attractive for his business, see page 7. |
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