Retail view: Bed warranties are too long
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, September 3, 2006
High Point — A majority of furniture and bedding specialty stores surveyed by Furniture/To-day think that current bedding manufacturer warranties are too long. Bedding specialty retailers have slightly stronger feelings on the topic than do their furniture store counterparts, the survey found.
Fifty-two percent of the furniture stores responding to an exclusive retail bedding survey said they think the bedding warranties are too long, while 48% classified them as "about right."
Within the ranks of specialty bedding stores, 56% of respondents said the current manufacturer warranties are too long, with 44% describing them as about right.
Survey respondents offered a variety of reasons for shortening warranties. "Compared to electronics," wrote one retailer, "we are way too long." Added another: "Warranties give unrealistic expectations of how long a sleep set will last." Said a third retailer: "Ten years (the standard bedding warranty length) is ridiculous."
The survey also found that manufacturers' brands are much more important to both furniture stores and bedding specialty stores than are bedding warranties.
The warranty questions were among more than a dozen questions that elicited responses from a nationwide survey of bedding retailers. The survey results paint a broad picture of bedding's performance on retail floors, revealing that the mattress category outperformed other categories on key measures such as gross margins, stock turns and sales per square foot, according to a majority of respondents.
Optimistic outlook
The survey found broad optimism about bedding's sales prospects in the coming months. A total of 58% of the furniture stores surveyed said they expect to record higher bedding sales this year than in 2005. But 39% said they expect sales to be about the same. Only 3% predicted lower bedding sales this year.
The results weren't quite as favorable for the bedding specialty stores surveyed. There, 47% said they expect higher sales this year, with 32% expecting bedding sales to be about the same. But, surprisingly, 21% of the bedding specialists said they expect lower bedding sales this year.
The survey also recorded basic performance data for both retail channels, the two largest channels for mattress sales. The furniture stores said they devoted a median of 6% of their selling space to bedding, generating a median of 12% of total sales from the category, with a median bedding gross margin of 46% and a median of six stock turns. Bedding sales per square foot for the furniture stores were a median of $185.
The bedding specialty stores, on the other hand, devoted a median of 81% of their selling space to bedding and generated a median of 88% of their sales from that category, with a median gross margin of 48%. Stock turns were a median of 13. Sales per square foot were a median of $200.
The furniture stores said that bedding outperformed other categories on their sales floors. Fifty-three percent of the furniture stores said bedding has a higher gross margin than other products they carry, while 60% said their stock turns with bedding were higher than for other products. Fifty-five percent of the furniture stores said sales per square foot for bedding were higher than for other products they carried.
The SKU setup
The survey found that furniture store respondents said they carry a median of 17 bedding SKUs, with a median of two bedding brands carried. For bedding specialty stores, the median for bedding SKUs was 40, and the number of brands carried was a median of four.
A majority of furniture stores (63%) said that the number of bedding SKUs they carried was lower than for other home furnishings lines. Only 44% of the bedding specialists said that was true for them.
The survey also revealed broad agreement that furniture stores and bedding specialty stores carry the four key bedding sizes: twin, full, queen and king. The specialists are more likely to carry crib bedding and sizes like California king; furniture stores are much less likely to sell those alternative sizes, the survey found.
And it provided a roadmap of best-selling price points by size, with some key differences emerging between furniture stores and bedding specialty stores.
For example, $199 is the median for the best-selling twin price point for furniture stores; for bedding specialty stores, it is $299. The two channels share the median best-selling price points for full — $399 — and queen — $699 — but diverge on larger sizes. Furniture stores have a median best-selling price point in king of $999, while it is a much more robust $1,288 in king at specialty stores.
| Medians | Furniture stores | Bedding specialists |
|---|---|---|
| % of selling space | 6% | 81% |
| % of total sales | 12% | 88% |
| SKUs on floor | 17 | 40 |
| Brands carried | 2 | 4 |
| Comparing profitability | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furniture stores Bedding specialists | Gross margin | Stock turns | Sales per square foot | ||||
|
Source: Furniture/Today's Bedding Retail Survey, 2006
|
|||||||
| Median | 46% | 48% | 6 | 13 | $185 | $200 | |
| Compared to other products sold bedding is... | Higher | 53% | 47% | 60% | 50% | 55% | 50% |
| About the same | 41% | 47% | 17% | 43% | 21% | 36% | |
| Lower | 6% | 6% | 23% | 7% | 24% | 14% | |
| The sales floor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Furniture stores | Bedding specialists | |||
| % selling | SKUs on floor, Medians | SKUs on floor, Medians | % selling | |
| Other includes twin XL, daybeds and olympic queen |
||||
| 3% | 2 | Crib | 3 | 15% |
| 88% | 3 | Twin | 4 | 90% |
| 73% | 4 | Full | 3 | 85% |
| 100% | 10 | Queen | 25 | 95% |
| 91% | 2 | King | 3 | 85% |
| 9% | 1 | California King | 3 | 40% |
| 3% | 1 | Other | 4 | 25% |
| Warranties are too long according to... | |
|---|---|
|
Source: Furniture/Today's Bedding Retail Survey, 2006
|
|
| 52% of furniture stores | 56% of bedding specialists |
No related articles for this topic.
Featured Company
-
FurnitureCore.com
FurnitureCore.com is a dynamic web application aimed at the furniture industry. Retailers and manufacturers alike will find our deep reserve of tools to be exactly what their furniture business needs.www.furniturecore.com... more
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
