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Retailers offer thoughts on closing buying gap

David Perry, Executive editor -- Furniture Today, April 27, 2003

My column on bedding's big buying gap appeared in our April 1 issue, but that gap is no April Fool's joke. It's actually a $2.5 billion problem.

When 28.5% of the consumers who shop for bedding fail to buy, we as an industry are missing literally $2.5 billion in lost bedding sales, based on the data turned up in some comprehensive consumer research by Furniture/Today.

That column on the buying gap struck a nerve with several readers, including Tim Sommer, the respected bedding merchandiser at HOM Furniture in Minnesota.

"That missing chunk of business is invisible to most retailers," Sommer wrote. "The reality of this statistic is that, in order to make the number better, we as retailers must get better at what we do — every aspect of what we do. This is a bitter pill for many to swallow."

Right on, Tim. The status quo in bedding just isn't getting the job done.

Sommer also has some interesting thoughts on the bedding shopping process: "I tend to believe that the more a customer shops multiple locations the less likely they are to actually buy something! (I'm taking cover as I'm writing this!) What must a consumer be thinking after the fifth time they hear that this brand or that brand is the best? Or how coil counts are important? Or how coil counts are not important? What do they think of a 60%-off sale? After a day of these fairy tales, I'd quit looking too!"

That sounds like an accurate summary of some of the challenges consumers face when they shop for mattresses nowadays. And the sad thing is, 28% of the time those fairy tales do not have happy endings.

So what's the answer? Sommer has these thoughts: "The solution, in my opinion, is to give the customer what they want. Friendly, competent, timely information that will help them solve a perceived problem. It's simple, really. We need less manipulative sales tactics and more real interest in the customer's well being. The fact is that a salesperson who can accomplish this will sell tons of beds to tons of customers even if his or her premium bedding brand is the Shifting Sands National Mattress Co. He may be the one to close that disillusioned 28%!"

I also heard from a salesman with a major bedding retailer, who picked up on my point that it's difficult to compare bedding brands because similar models have different names.

"Sure," this salesman wrote, "retailers don't want people to comparison shop. But if you make it easier on the customer then they'll possibly have less resentment and frustration, and more of an open pocketbook for the retailers who shoot straight in offering the best service and price."

That's a novel idea: Let's make it easier for the customer.

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