High pillow purchase rates good news for bed stores

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, October 13, 2012

Consumers typically keep their mattress for several years before buying a new one. And therein lies a dilemma for mattress retailers, who would benefit greatly from a shorter mattress replacement cycle.

Pillow purchases

When was the last time you purchased pillows for your bedroom?

     Sleep accessories can help retailers reduce the pain of those long mattress purchase cycles. And the chart we provided above shows the power packed by pillows, which are purchased much more frequently than mattresses.
     True, the price tags on pillows are much less than on a good mattress, but pillows cover an expanding range of price points these days. And check out how often consumers are buying pillows.
     About half of the consumers surveyed for this National Sleep Foundation poll said they purchased pillows for their bedroom in the past year. The number rises to three-quarters of the consumers when you expand the pillow purchase time out to two years. Those are numbers that are too big for smart retailers to ignore.
     Pillows can be an entry purchase for a mattress sale. That's why mattress retailers should spruce up their pillow offerings, and should frequently include pillows in their advertising. It's a good idea to promote a product that consumers buy frequently - and that could spark a mattress sale.