Consumer scorecard
Furniture/Today surveys reveal strengths, weaknesses of category
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 3, 2002
High Point — Consumers really are king.
There's a growing realization of that fact in the bedding industry. Savvy producers are increasingly turning to consumer research to design sleep products that meet the wants and needs of today's consumers. Retailers, too, are finding that it's good business to focus on consumers.
With this growing consumer focus in mind, we decided to take a close look at some powerful consumer research on bedding that we have done in recent years.
In 1997 and again in 2000, Furniture/Today commissioned National Family Opinion, a respected consumer research firm, to poll consumers on their furniture purchases and their plans to buy furniture. We asked about a variety of furniture items, including the mattress/ boxspring category.
More than 21,000 households responded to our survey in 1997. The number climbed to more than 27,000 in 2000. That's a large and diverse enough sample to give us results that are nationally projectable, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1%.
We compared how the mattress/ boxspring category performed in 1997 with how it fared in 2000. The results of those comparisons, plus some additional analysis of demographic data, gave us an overview of what happens when consumers shop for and purchase bedding.
Then we took that information and assigned letter grades to each category. The grades are purely our work — consumers did not literally grade bedding. But we do think the grades, while subjective, are a reflection of consumers' experiences with the mattress/boxspring category.
-
Bedding leaders expect gains in ‘11
Dec 24, 2010 -
Execs assess future distribution for bedding
Nov 30, 2009 -
Industry gets low grades on selling better sleep
Jun 1, 2009 -
As bedding prices rise, commodity image wanes
Jan 6, 2008
Featured Company
-
Brandwise Inc.
Brandwise serves a model - not just an industry - by integrating, automating, and optimizing the entire sales channel, from wholesale Suppliers to their Reps and the Retailers they service. In short, our software helps Reps and Suppliers sell more and create... more
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
