Nation: Bedding retailers have four shots at success
David Perry, Executive Editor -- Furniture Today, February 6, 2005
It's been an axiom of the bedding business for as long as I've been writing about the bedding business: You sell up by selling down.
That refers, of course, to the concept of starting the retail sales process by showing consumers the most luxurious — and expensive — mattresses on the sales floor first. If the consumer can't afford that bed, he or she then moves down the price point ladder.
By starting high, retailers presumably wind up selling consumers better — and more expensive — beds than they would if they started consumers out with the least comfortable and least expensive beds on the sales floor. That, at least, is the conventional bedding wisdom.
But Spring Air President Jim Nation says that wisdom just may be out of date. He recently told me about consumer research done for Spring Air that shows consumers are not infinitely patient when it comes to trying out mattresses.
Specifically, the research says that after consumers lie down on more than four beds, the likelihood of making a sale is significantly reduced. At that point, consumers have too much information to process and they back away.
So, based on this research, bedding retailers have a "sweet spot" of only four different bed pitches per customer.
In the old days, when high-end beds were far less common on retail floors, retailers could start a consumer on one high-end bed and quickly move down into much more affordable territory. But that's no longer the case, as high-end mattresses have proliferated in the market.
The research done for Spring Air also says that a significant number of consumers expect to pay about $1,000 for a new set of bedding.
Considering all that, it may not be wise, Nation suggests, to start out all shoppers on, say, a $4,500 sleep set and work down from there. Qualifying the consumer is critical. On a busy sales floor, sales associates would be wise to ask a pertinent question: How much are you willing to spend?
One school of thought holds it's a bad idea to ask such a question, because it needlessly locks consumers into a certain price range when they have no idea of the great new — and more expensive — possibilities out there.
But Nation says the brave new world of high-end beds can, in fact, confuse the consumer.
And remember those four prime shots at success. Just where to take those four shots will largely determine success or failure on the retail sales floor, the Spring Air research suggests.
These are fascinating insights. What do you retailers think?
