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Not your usual mattress store

By David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 20, 2006

Rockford, Ill. — The new merchandising direction at Al Grace Appliance was set: Out with the lawn tractors and in with the mattresses.

Goodbye Poulan. Hello Restonic.

It has been a year since the lawn tractors began riding into the sunset, surrendering their valuable floor space to a full line of Restonic sleep sets. That has given this hard-charging appliance dealer here, a local institution, a product line that boosts its margins, builds traffic and helps consumers improve their lives, company officials say.

The combination of luxurious sleep sets and the latest gas ranges is not as strange as it might sound at first.

"It's not unusual for appliance stores to sell mattresses," observed Brad Born, vice president at Al Grace. "The buzz used to be that you needed to focus. Then that changed and the buzz was about trying floor care and bedding.

"We are regular old Joes. We listen to what people are saying. It seems now that the appliance business is pretty happy with getting into bedding," he said.

Al Grace Appliance has reason to be pleased, its executives say.

Store Manager Scott Norcross, a retail and bedding veteran who spearheaded the retailer's mattress venture, is all smiles over the healthy margins that mattresses bring the store — margins that are much higher than is typical of appliances, he says.

"We are loving life," he said. "And we are having fun."

Born said Restonic is "the perfect brand" for his store. "We can brand Restonic and we can brand ourselves," he said. "We are both on the same page on that."

Al Grace Appliance is not just sticking its toe into the bedding waters; it has plunged in with a 45-bed lineup that is every bit as extensive as those found at many furniture and bedding specialty stores.

A full line of Restonic beds, in constructions ranging from conventional innerspring to encased coil, and from visco- and latex-cushioned models to airbeds, awaits the consumers who visit the store on West Riverside Boulevard. Models retail from $399 to $5,000.

Norcross admitted that when he joined Al Grace he first looked at bringing in one of the big "S" brands, or maybe a big "T" brand. But he couldn't land any of those lines, for distribution reasons, he was told. That opened the door for Restonic.

Al Grace Appliance started out with 12 Restonic beds, said Don Balsavich, president of Restonic's licensee in Escanaba, Mich., which services the retailer. "Two months into the new program," he recalled, "store executives compared notes and liked what they found. Their next question: How many more beds can we get on the floor?"

The answer, as it turned out, was almost three dozen more. They occupy coveted space at the right front of the store, once the home of the lawn tractors, and spread out all the way to the back of the store. Rooms filled with television sets are right next to the mattress department.

Born is quick to give credit for the mattress success to Norcross, who spent several years with Leath Furniture before moving on to work for Serta's Beloit, Wis., plant.

"We wouldn't be doing this without Scott," Born said. "And if we were, we would be doing it poorly. Scott's technique is outstanding. We are trying to get our appliance sales people to be that comfortable and that convincing."

Norcross offers this insight on his bedding success: "A mattress is a very emotional purchase. It can be a touchy subject for men and women. Asking the right questions is critical. And you have to listen to customers' answers. A lot of the time salespeople don't listen to the customer. They are too busy setting up their next question."

He believes it is essential to ask consumers what they like about their current mattress, and also to find out what they don't like about it. "Then," he said, "we try to take them to a product that has the things she likes and doesn't have the things she doesn't like."

That's part of the formula for success at Al Grace Appliance, located squarely in the middle of the Midwest. While many marketers wonder how things will play in Peoria, Ill., a city a couple of hours away, they might be well advised to ask: How will things roll in Rockford?

Rockford is a town where family values matter. Its manufacturing base has lost some of its luster, but it still has plenty of blue-collar workers. It is also attracting more residents from the Chicago suburbs an hour away.

"People in Rockford insist on value," Norcross said. "They are intent on getting mileage for their money. They hold retailers' feet to the fire on that. Retailers who provide value will thrive. Those who don't will go away."

With a value-packed line from Restonic, Al Grace Appliance is meeting its customers' needs, Norcross said.

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