Bedding store gets remake
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, April 6, 2009
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Bedzzz Express is a major bedding retailer in Alabama, but maybe, just maybe, it's not perfect.
Owner Keith Krininger, who has put 15 years of hard work into building the chain, agreed to let a retail makeover team descend on his stores here to turn up the emotional appeal of his mattress and sleep accessories offerings, remaking his business in ways large and small.
The six-member “Xtreme Retail Makeover” team, headed by Leggett & Platt executive Mark Quinn, has embarked on an ambitious effort to strategically design a bedding store to produce higher mattress and sleep accessory sales. Bedzzz Express is offering the first retail test of those ideas.
“The point of this project is to prove to the industry that selling the benefit of sleep instead of the product/price/promotion only is the way to go,” said Quinn, group executive vice president of marketing for L&P's bedding division. “Consumers buy emotionally and we are going to show that the strategic shift from logic to emotion will pay big dividends.”
Thus far, the team has revamped four of the eight Bedzzz Express stores in the Birmingham market.
Quinn will share the story of the retail makeover at Bedzzz Express in a presentation at Furniture/Today's upcoming Bedding Conference, set for May 5-7 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point in Bonita Springs, Fla. He is promising to reveal some surprising results.
Krininger was willing to let the L&P retail makeover team reinvent many aspects of his business, but he did object to some suggestions. For one thing, he refused to let the team remove the neon signs from his windows.
“Boys,” he told the L&P crew in his Alabama drawl, “back off. It got us where we are today and we ain't changing it.”
But the team, which includes senior L&P executives, did make other significant changes. Store interiors were altered to give them a softer feel that is more aesthetically pleasing and should be more conducive to selling better beds, according to L&P officials.
The team reviewed all aspects of Krininger's business, from his point-of-purchase materials and sleep accessory displays to his Web site and public relations strategy.
The project represents some of Quinn's central beliefs about strategies that bedding retailers should use to build their business — strategies that are more important than ever in today's challenging business climate, he says.
He said his 15 years in the industry have taught him that “focusing on the emotional benefits our products deliver, instead of just focusing on the product itself, will increase retailer sales.”
The retail makeover challenged some of Krininger's ideas about how to operate his bedding business. Quinn summarized the battle this way: “Will the strategic overhaul of an already popular bedding retailer result in the increase in sales that Leggett & Platt predicts? Or will the makeover team's virtually untested efforts fall flat in the face of Krininger's tried-and-true sales message of price and product?”
Quinn said he'll answer those questions on May 6 at the Bedding Conference.
The L&P team includes John Walsh, director of creative services; Brian Croft, director of U.S. retail sales; Herman Tam, Consumer Products Group vice president of sales and marketing; Tom Hawkins, Web development director; and Mary Leigh Wallace, vice president of RLF Communications of Greensboro, N.C., the public relations agency for L&P's bedding group.
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