It all started, as so many things do, with a big idea. Jerry Gershaw was thinking big when he founded a bedding company named Therapedic in 1957. Today, Therapedic is a Top 10 bedding brand, and Gershaw enjoys the unique honor of watching as his creation prepares to celebrate a milestone anniversary next year.

Those 50 years flashed by faster than he ever imagined they would, Gershaw admitted.

His bold idea: Launching a brand that would offer an alternative to the two big “S” brands of that era, Simmons and Sealy. Gershaw, who had some experience in the bedding industry as a manufacturer, believe...Read More

I’ve stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest with my recent suggestion that we should shorten bedding producers’ warranties to one year and let retailers sell extended warranties. (See recent column)

Reaction has ranged from glowing — “Great column about shortening warranties! I could not agree with you more.” — to glaring: “If warranties are shortened to one year, what message are you sending the consumer?”
This week, I’m sharing with you some of the comments I’ve gotten, and my reactions.

Let’s start with the critics. Addressing the topic as consumers, two bloggers objected to the idea of shorter warranties. One wrote: “I personally always look for the longest warr...Read More

Want to make more “dough” with your bedding store? Try the playbook of Panera Bread Co. Yes, the restaurant and bakery chain, which sells plenty of bread, is also making plenty of money in the process. A flattering story on Panera in my favorite weekly business magazine (that would be BusinessWeek) offers our industry some “food for thought,” as it were.

First, a few interesting facts. Panera is outpacing its fast-food rivals with a formula that stresses healthy — and pricey — alternatives for lunch. The average ticket for a fast-food lunch is $4.55, the BusinessWeek story said. Panera soars above that at a hefty $8.51. High tickets like that help Panera generate annual sales per store of $1.85 million. ...Read More

Let’s assume, for the moment, that you are running an expansion-oriented furniture retailer. You are looking for a category to boost your margins and to give your sales a shot of adrenaline. You also want to increase your turns.

What do you do? Easy. You open some bedding specialty stores, thus joining an elite group of retailers that is outperforming the industry as a whole.

That is one lesson that emerges from a close look at Furniture/Today’s survey of the Top 100 U.S. Furniture Stores (order electronic version). Our latest installment of that report, included as a special section in our May 29 issue, provides fascinating insights into the furniture and bedding specialty scene.

The 11 bedding specialty retailers ranked on ...Read More