Escaping 'sale' mentality poses major challenge
David Perry, Executive editor -- Furniture Today, March 23, 2009
Is “sale” a bad word in Mattressville?
That's an intriguing question, and it's one that is harder to answer than you might think. Sure, you can make the case that we should be selling better sleep rather than low prices. As regular readers of this column know, I'm firmly in the camp advocating more emphasis on better sleep messages. But, and here it gets tricky, the American consumer has been conditioned to look for sales. Yours truly can't do anything to change that reality.
My thoughts on the sale conundrum were sparked by a recent comment from my friend Kathy Grigg, vice president of Carolina Mattress Guild. She recently got one of those e-mails posing thought-provoking questions. This “Why, why, why?” e-mail asks such questions as “Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are almost dead?” and “Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?” Unfortunately for our industry, there was also a mattress question: “Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?”
“How sad,” Kathy commented, “that our industry is categorized with these other truisms.”
I suppose the answer to that question is that no, there aren't any days on which mattresses are not on sale, somewhere. And, if we somehow managed to find one day where no mattress sales were under way, you know what would happen. Some retailer would have a sale on that day: “Come shop our First Annual Non-Mattress Sale Day Sale.”
There are some retailers who are trying to break out of the “sale” mold. Arthur Watkins, president of Mattress Inn in Nashville, Tenn. (and a speaker at our upcoming Bedding Conference), is successfully employing a number of different approaches to the business. For one thing, he doesn't put sale posters in his stores. For another, he doesn't even use the “S” word. “I teach our concierge staff not to say 'sell' or 'on sale' in their presentations,” he said. “We use different verbiage because it affects the way the customer thinks of your company and the person working with them.”
That is a very interesting approach, one designed to elevate the product above the sale-sale-sale level. We think Watkins is correct when he says the words we use affect how consumers look at us. As Kurt Ling, president of Customer Kinetics, has commented, you don't see ads for discount dermatology clinics or bargain doctor's offices.
A pragmatic view of the overall retail landscape reveals that sale messages are omnipresent. Yes, it's encouraging to see retailers step forward with new approaches. But Ms. American Consumer is always looking for a sale, bless her heart.
Contact David Perry at dperry@reedbusiness.com
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