New Beautyrest takes off
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, February 11, 2007
Las Vegas — Simmons launched its new flagship Beautyrest line at market here, and company executives said dealers were impressed with the line's values.
"The response was strong because our dealers had a great response to the Beautyrest feels, the point-of-purchase materials illustrating the three key benefits of our Pocketed Coils — motion separation, conformability and durability — and the logic of our step-up stories," said Rolf Sannes, Beautyrest brand director. "Further, we had dealers adding SKUs because of the breadth and great values our new line offers."
The new Beautyrest line retails from $599 to $3,999. It offers higher coil densities, improved comfort features and demonstrable step-up stories that are retailer and consumer friendly, according to Simmons.
While all three of the new Beautyrest collections are designed to comply with the federal mattress flammability standard that takes effect in July, Simmons will not add labels noting that the beds are FR compliant until May as a quality control measure, the company said.
"We are extremely committed to maintaining the integrity of our products," said Gary Matthews, Simmons president, who joined the company in December and was introduced at the company's press briefing. "Converting all of our manufacturing plants to FR production is a complicated process, so we are making every effort to ensure that transition is as smooth as possible."
He said the models in the new Beautyrest line, which start shipping this month, will be FR compliant, but noted that some of the outgoing Beautyrest models will continue to be shipped until the company and its dealers all make the transition to the new Beautyrest line.
Company Chairman and CEO Charlie Eitel said Simmons has been able to drive down the costs of adding fire-resistant protection to its beds. He said that the actual costs of adding the FR protection are "less than half" of what they were in the past. "From a value standpoint," Eitel said, "it (the cost of adding FR) is a non-issue."
Before joining Simmons, Matthews was president and CEO of Sleep Innovations, a specialty bedding manufacturer. In his 27-year career, he has worked in a variety of industries.
Eitel said that last year, Simmons probably accounted for about half of the total growth recorded by the U.S. bedding industry. He also said that Simmons recorded the biggest market share gain in the company's history, probably close to 3 percentage points.
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