Climbing the mountain: Vegas offers new strategies
David Perry, Executive editor -- Furniture Today, February 16, 2009
The snowcapped mountains sparkled in the early morning sunlight. I admired the majestic view from my lofty, windy perch, an ideal spot to appreciate the scene.
No, I wasn't in the Alps. I was on a wind-swept walkway linking buildings B and C on the World Market Center campus in Las Vegas. I took that inspiring view in several times during my WMC travels last week.
And, as I reflect on it, that mountain tableau offers us a nice summary of the challenge facing the mattress industry this year: We have to climb a mountain of uncertainties, worries and just plain lousy economic shortcomings.
How we should confront those challenges is the $64,000 question, obviously. We saw a number of answers offered in Las Vegas showrooms. Not surprisingly, many centered on value-priced sleep sets, retailing at traffic-boosting price points starting at $199 and going up from there. That is certainly a traditional industry response to slumping sales.
But I wonder if it is the right response. Wouldn't it be better if we could boost prices this year, and not slash them?
I know you will say I'm out of touch with the market to raise such a question, but we should all consider what happens when we slash prices: Our average unit selling price goes down. We trade consumers down. We work harder for smaller tickets. We also position our products as being worth less than they were. Those are not the soundest of building blocks.
I was intrigued by the Sleep to Live presentation unveiled at the Venetian by Kingsdown. That producer, operating a few test stores in North Carolina, aims to change the mattress shopping experience by appealing to the importance of sleep to health and wellness.
The presentation included these statistics: 2% of consumers purchase a new sleep set each year, but 70% of consumers are interested in investing in better health. So the question is: Which of those segments would you rather target? Sadly, our industry generally targets that 2% slice of the market with advertising that generally touts a price story. In a year like 2009, which has trouble written all over it, we would be wise to appeal to a broader market and not a narrower one.
I was also impressed last week with the new Tempur-Pedic “sleep experience center” featured in the company's showroom. It also aims to change the shopping experience by offering an education-rich presentation in a semi-private setting. Retailers who have used that center have significantly boosted their sales tickets, Tempur-Pedic officials told me.
Kudos to Kingsdown and Tempur-Pedic for offering glimpses of new ways to boost business this year.
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