More gel-cushioned sets on tap in bedding

David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 13, 2012

HIGH POINT - Retailers looking for gel-cushioned sleep sets have plenty of options to choose from here.
     Top 15 bedding producers at the High Point Market are showing gel beds in a broad range of price points, from promotional to high end. This category is flexing some serious muscle at retail, the manufacturers say.
     Serta, the leader in the gel bedding arena, adds new iSeries beds at $1,999 and $2,999. The iSeries features the company's gel memory foam, paired with a new innerspring unit. Serta will be showing all seven of its popular iComfort gel memory foam beds and the complete line of its iComfort gel memory foam pillows.
     Sealy is following up on the success of its Optimum gel memory foam line with a new high-end pillowtop model, and also is showing its new promotional gel bedding line, which starts at $599.
    Simmons offers its Gel-Touch foam in all of its high-end Beautyrest Black models. The line is adding three models with a firmer coil this market. Retails for the line range from $1,999 to $3,299.
     Simmons is also touting what it says will be a major specialty sleep introduction featuring a technology designed to promote ideal sleeping temperatures. It will unveil details of that new offering at the market.
     Therapedic brings its successfully launched Agility line to High Point. The beds, retailing from $1,299 to $2,499, combine gel foam and micro-coils in an ultra responsive design, the company says. The line is backed with a strong offering of point-of-purchase materials, including lifestyle banners.
     Restonic moves into a new, larger International Home Furnishings Center showroom, M-508. The producer addresses the gel category with its TempaGel memory foam, which is featured in an all-foam collection that incorporates Outlast phase change material in the ticking, as well as in Restonic's ComfortCare Select, a Marvelous Middle individually wrapped coil series, and a HealthRest hybrid series, with TempaGel over individually wrapped coils, in a non-quilted design.
     Restonic is running its "Show us your Marvelous Middle!" consumer contest through Nov. 12, which encourages consumers to submit a photo of their "Marvelous Middle," which could be a middle child, the middle of a special cake, or a baby's belly.
     The contest will be available through Restonic's Twitter, Facebook and websites. Three winners will be awarded a new Restonic Marvelous Middle mattress.