Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

David Perry

Bedding majors make news with price cuts

It's been a tough year for the bedding industry. Retail bedding sales have languished in recent months, and the industry appears headed for a year of essentially flat unit growth.

So I shouldn't have been surprised by some of the price-cutting that made headlines during the just-concluded High Point Market. But, frankly, I was.

Some very unusual moves raised eyebrows throughout the industry.

In a press briefing with me at market, Sealy officials announced a series of price rollbacks in the flagship Posturepedic line, and in the luxury Stearns & Foster brand. The Sealy rollbacks brought pillowtop models retailing at $899, $999 and $1,099 down by $100 each. And latex and innerspring beds retailing at $1,199 and $1,299 also were rolled back by $100 each.

The Stearns & Foster rollbacks were broader. Prices have dropped there by anywhere from $100 to $500. Sealy officials told me the price cuts were needed because business is tough and they are sharpening their pencils. Maybe so, but it’s extremely unusual to see a producer reduce prices on in-line goods. The S&F rollbacks are so big as to raise the question of whether the S&F line, as introduced last year, missed the mark.

It should be noted that competition in the $1,000-plus category has never been fiercer. Specialty bedding is a major and still-growing force in that segment. Tempur-Pedic just reported more stellar results. S&F has some very tough competition.

Another price rollback, of sorts, was unveiled by Simmons. That major, which has done a good job of selling better beds, is unexpectedly sharp at $299 retail, the bottom of the market. That is the new starting price for the Simmons DeepSleep model. Dealers want that price point, Simmons officials said. Now Simmons is providing it.

Retailers are the beneficiaries of these lower and sharper prices. They will provide hot (or hotter) price points for newspaper ads. And that, in turn, should help spark sales and drive unit volume.

Speaking of driving sales, Therapedic made market news by touting an unlikely event, an Election Day sale. Relatively few retailers have dipped into the crowded pantheon of sales events and pulled out an Election Day event. But that's the beauty of such a sale. It's a hidden gem just waiting to be unearthed, polished and promoted.

If I were running a retail bedding store (which, admittedly, is a much tougher challenge than serving as your faithful mattress correspondent), I would get going on an Election Day sale right away. And I would plug some of those sharply priced branded bedding lines into my fourth-quarter promotions.

Tough times call for aggressive promotions … and a measure of faith. Better days lie ahead, somewhere, sometime.