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Select Comfort solidifies lead in bedding retail

Sleepy's climbs to No. 2 with 21.7% gain, followed by Mattress Firm

By David Perry -- Furniture Today, July 31, 2005

High Point — Select Comfort selected a high gear last year to continue to distance itself from its rivals in the highly competitive bedding arena. The Minnesota-based retailer of airbeds stands unchallenged as the nation's leading bedding retailer, again topping Furniture/Today's annual ranking of the Top 25 Bedding Retailers.

Select Comfort continues to leverage shrewd strategic and marketing moves into success in the marketplace. Its 20.8% sales gain was one of the five best growth increases achieved by a Top 25 bedding retailer, and it boosted its bedding sales last year to $517.4 million.

Sleepy's, the New York-based bedding specialty retailer, had a slightly higher growth rate — 21.7% — but its total of $308 million in bedding sales left it far behind Select Comfort in second place on the list. But Sleepy's No. 2 ranking is an improvement over last year, when it held the No. 3 position. That spot is now held by Mattress Firm, with 2004 bedding sales of $273 million.

Rounding out this year's top five are Federated Department Stores, with 2004 bedding sales of $256 million, and Sam's Club, with bedding sales estimated at $248 million.

Furniture/Today estimates that retail sales of conventional and specialty bedding and futons reached $10.7 billion last year. The Top 25 bedding retailers accounted for 36.2% of that volume, with bedding sales last year of $3.87 billion.

New to the Top 25 list are two retail networks that are rapidly making their mark on the bedding landscape.

America's Mattress, part of a network of Serta-only sleep shops, ranks No. 7 on the list with 2004 bedding sales estimated at $180 million. That group of stores was 390 strong at the end of 2004.

And the Ashley Furniture HomeStores network, with 153 stores at the end of last year, generated bedding sales of $80 million, a whopping 53.8% increase over bedding sales of $52 million in 2003. That was the largest percentage increase on the Top 25 list, and it stamps Ashley as the nation's fastest-growing bedding retailer.

Tempur-Pedic, growing rapidly in its own right, stands as the bedding retailer with the second-highest percentage increase, at 40.3%. That gain pushed Tempur-Pedic's direct-to-consumer sales to $84.2 million last year.

Bedding specialists dominate the Top 10 positions on the list.

In addition to Select Comfort, Sleepy's, Mattress Firm and America's Mattress, the leading specialists include Mattress Giant, with 2004 bedding sales of $184 million, and The Sleep Train, with bedding sales of $163 million last year.

As a group, bedding specialty stores command 10 of the Top 25 spots, collectively generating slightly more than $2 billion in retail bedding sales, a 10.3% increase over the previous year.

And those 10 players represent slightly more than half of the volume generated by the Top 25.

The other bedding specialists on the list include Rockaway Bedding, Dial-A-Mattress, Mattress Discounters and Sit 'n Sleep.

The seven furniture stores on the list account for almost 19% of the bedding sales generated by the Top 25. The Berkshire Hathaway furniture division, which consists of Nebraska Furniture Mart, R.C. Willey, Star Furniture and Jordan's Furniture, is the largest of those seven, with bedding sales last year of $156 million.

Rooms To Go is not far behind, with bedding sales of $150 million.

The rest of the furniture store list is rounded out by Art Van, Slumberland, Levitz Home Furnishings, Ashley Furniture HomeStores and Havertys. Together, the furniture stores on the list saw their bedding sales increase by 11.7% last year, slightly better than the 10.3% gain achieved by the Top 25 as a whole.

Four department store groups are on the list: Federated Department Stores, May Department Stores, Sears and JCPenney.

As a group, those four accounted for slightly more than 17% of the Top 25's volume last year.

Two warehouse membership clubs are represented: Sam's Club and Costco.

Furniture/Today estimates put the sales gain at Sam's Club last year at 3.3%, while Costco had an estimated 11.8% increase. Together, those two players accounted for 8.4% of the Top 25's bedding volume in 2004.

Wal-Mart, a discount department store, posted a 4.6% increase to record bedding sales last year of $68 million.

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