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Hartford, Conn. — Gold Bond, one of the oldest names in the bedding business, is finding success by taking a page from a well-worn but neglected playbook.
The producer, a leader in the futon market that's now coming on strong in the innerspring category, admits that it is looking to the past to fuel its future growth.
"We have gone back to the basics," said Andy Freedman, vice president of sales and marketing. "That serves you well in your personal life and in your professional life. That's always the best place to start.
Person-to-person marketing
"If you go back and think about the bedding business, it was built on relationships and contacts at the local level. You had local operators who really understood their local markets. They understood their market conditions, the retailers and the people. It was person to person."
Freedman said that this approach to the market is something he and Gold Bond President Bob Naboicheck felt was "a real opportunity for us. The nationalization of the bedding brands has left a vacuum in the original bedding model. There is an opportunity out there. There are very few people who can do what the old guys once did."
Gold Bond is one producer that can take the best of the old business models and successfully implement them in today's marketplace, Freedman said.
The company, founded in 1899, does that with a product- and service-focused strategy that gives retailers more value and support than they can get from the bedding heavyweights, Gold Bond officials assert.
The company starts with product: It uses a number of tried-and-true bedding materials and constructions, most of them employed in two-sided mattresses, to give retailers bedding lines that offer "30% more" value than competitors' lines.
"We can make sure the product is a bigger portion of the selling price because we don't have the overhead and debt" of some other producers, Freedman said. "We can also offer more localized customization. That comes down to the skill base of the people we have in our organization."
Gold Bond is thriving because it offers retailers "a substantially better product at better prices," Freedman said. The company's retailers typically sell Gold Bond beds at margins of 60% to 65%, far above the industry norm of about 44%, according to Freedman.
Quality construction
Gold Bond's products command those prices because they are packed with more springs, fiber and foam than other lines, the company says. The heart of its innerspring bedding is its Balanced Rest Smart Coil System, 850 coils with alternating right- and left-turns to minimize swaying motion. Head-to-toe helical wires reduce roll together and minimize partner disturbance. Double steel perimeter edge supports eliminate corner sag and roll off, and true coil box springs — a rarity in today's market — extend mattress life, according to Gold Bond.
The comfort layers feature substantial amounts of silk and wool blends, in some models, and layer upon layer of foams, including visco and super soft. Gold Bond still uses natural sisal insulator pads, an old type of construction not commonly used today.
Gold Bond's flagship innerspring line is its Sacro-Support line, a brand the company originally launched decades ago. Its Sacro-Support Premier series retails from about $699 to $1,499.
The company is expanding its Perfection series of specialty bedding to offer strong latex and visco values at price points ranging from $999 to $2,999. That is a single-sided line of bedding.
And the new Prestige line, introduced last fall in High Point, features nested and encased coils in mattresses cushioned with materials ranging from cashmere and wool to silk and visco. The beds, with European boxed pillowtops and circular knit covers, retail from $1,299 to $2,999.
Most of Gold Bond's bedding is still two-sided.
An 'antidote to the slickness'
"Two of something is better than one of something," Naboicheck says of that type of construction, which the bedding majors have largely abandoned in favor of single-sided lines.
Gold Bond ships its futons nationwide, but focuses its innerspring business in the Eastern half of the United States.
The company says its message of selling better bedding at good margins is resonating with a growing number of retailers.
"We are the antidote to the slickness in the world today," Freedman said. "We are trying to emphasize good old-fashioned values and service. In every market we are in, our pitch hits home."
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