1-800-Mattress debuts galleries
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 21, 2004
LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y. — LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y.— 1-800-Mattress, which pioneered a different way to sell mattresses, is now looking for different kinds of retailers to carry its bedding.
Company founder Napoleon "Nap" Barragan "has given us the charge to partner with as many retailers who have brick and mortar as possible," said Joe Vicens, executive vice president.
1-800-Mattress is seeking to execute a bricks-and-clicks strategy driven by its powerful Web site, www.mattress.com, and a bricks-and-calls strategy driven by its powerful 1-800-Mattress phone number. Many consumers who contact the company are in areas 1-800-Mattress doesn't serve, and a significant number then buy beds from other retailers— a lost opportunity for 1-800-Mattress.
The company's new gallery program is being spearheaded by Tom McCain, director of galleries and international business, a new post. A former executive with Latex Foam International and Reed Exhibitions, McCain recently joined 1-800-Mattress.
In the gallery program, 1-800-Mattress will warehouse and deliver the bedding. The gallery retailers will show and sell the products.
Furniture and bedding retailers would be prime candidates to participate in the program, Vicens said, because some face operational challenges in running their businesses, and because a significant number of mattress customers also are interested in buying furniture.
But non-traditional bedding retailers also could benefit. 1-800-Mattress successfully tested the gallery program with an appliance retailer. "Any brick-and-mortar retailer can carry beds," Vicens said.
The gallery program, initially targeted to major metro markets such as New York, Washington, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco, aims to serve consumers who are prime retail prospects.
A study conducted by the company found that half of 12,000 consumers who initially contacted 1-800-Mattress but didn't buy from the company did go on to buy a bed somewhere else. Rather than simply lose those sales, 1-800-Mattress wants to funnel those consumers to stores that carry its lines.
"We have the customers," Barragan said, "but not the stores."
Retailers who sign up for the gallery program will be listed on the company's Web site and added to its telephone database so that sales leads can be directed to them. Some consumers will not buy mattresses over the telephone or via the Internet and want to see and test the products for themselves, Vicens said.
With 18 distribution centers across the country, 1-800-Mattress is in a position to reach about 40% of the U.S. population, he said.
The gallery program is just one initiative that 1-800-Mattress is undertaking to expand its business. The company also is promoting the creation of "selling groups," in which bedding retailers would join forces to promote under a common banner, such as an 800-number.
1-800-Mattress, which pioneered telephone sales of mattresses, is on Furniture/Today's Top 100 furniture stores list as Dial-A-Mattress. Estimated sales of $85 million in 2002 ranked the company at No. 70.
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