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10 bedding specialists deliver growth sermon
We can’t let another week go by without saluting some exceptional bedding retailers who blew the competition away last year. Yes, we are talking about the 10 bedding specialty stores that loomed large on our latest list of the Top 100 U.S. Furniture Stores.
That listing is one of our benchmark reports each year, and it usually contains good news for the bedding industry. The bedding specialty stores on the list each year typically are top performers.
But, as we noted in the Top 100 report in our May 28, issue, the 10 bedding specialists on this year’s list really outdid themselves. For example:
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They posted a collective 19.8% sales increase to $2.96 billion. That easily surpassed the 6.6% sales gain registered by the Top 100 as a whole, the 9% growth recorded by the Top 10, and the 9.6% gain registered by the single-source store networks.
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They racked up a 12.1% gain in store count to 2,462 units, collectively adding a net of 266 stores. Overall, the Top 100 posted a 3.4% unit gain.
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Six of the 10 bedding specialists recorded double-digit sales gains last year. Select Comfort was up 15%, Sleepy’s up 15.5%, Mattress Firm grew 23.9%, The Sleep Train saw sales jump 70.6%, the Serta-exclusive sleep shop network was up 15%, and 1800mattress.com posted a 39.1% increase.
The brightest bedding star is The Sleep Train, one of the Six Retail Bedding Giants we honored last year
The only bedding chain on the Top 100 to see its store count decline last year was the Serta network, down 41 units. But it still posted the double-digit sales gain noted above.
The other bedding retailers on the Top 100 list are Mattress Giant, Rockaway Bedding (currently in Chapter 11 protection), Mattress Discounters and Sit ’n Sleep.
We keep preaching about the power of bedding on retail floors, and the latest Top 100 just adds another sermon to our library.
To those 10 bedding specialty stores, we add a hearty "Amen." Thanks for a terrific performance in 2006.
at our first Bedding Conference. Sleep Train acquired Sleep Country USA, but also opened 27 other stores last year. And Dale Carlson and his talented team aren’t slowing down; 35 more stores are planned this year.
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