Mattress retailers: Service, support issues important
Retail Bedding Playbook
David Perry -- Furniture Today, January 9, 2012
HIGH POINT - This week we continue our examination of the characteristics that retailers want in their bedding vendors, based on our survey of retailers. And as we consider some of the traits further down the list we see, yet again, that service and support are critical to retailers.
In our last Retail Bedding Playbook, we examined the characteristics at the top of the list, noting that service and delivery issues are paramount. In this Playbook, we extend that theme to include support.
Retailers are clearly looking to their bedding vendors for sales and training program (No. 7 on the list below), as well as strong merchandising programs (No. 8) and effective point of-sale materials to explain the features and benefits of their bedding lines (No. 9).
Those elements are all vital for bedding success today, and all transcend pricing. What the retailers are saying here is that they need plenty of support from their bedding vendors - support in training their sales associates, support in offering clearly merchandised product lines, and support in telling their selling stories.
It's interesting that exclusive distribution, generally thought to be a top priority of most retailers, ranks relatively low on this retail list and is clearly trumped by service, delivery and support issues. And the retailers show relatively low interest in whether the producer has been an industry leader. That's how it should be, we suppose: What the producer does for the retailers right now - giving them accurate delivery dates, taking care of service problems, etc. - is of paramount concern to bedding retailers.
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