Ikea touts long warranty, shorter replacement cycle

Hi Dave I am an award winning designer and entrepreneur from south africa.I have been involved in all aspects of furniture and mattress maufacturing from design and development to supplying of components and fabrics. I felt that you would be the best person to talk to about this. I have designed and developed a product that will replace timber in the loungesuite and bedding manufacturing markets. The test results have been completed and i am ready to start marketing in 30 days time. The product is 100% eco friendly and 100% recycable. It offers huge savings for manufacturers.This product will be the most eco friendly product in the world. I have been in China for the past 4 months finalising contracts with manufacturers that will be capable of manufacturing my product. Sofar i have over 500 manufacturers ready to go! I want to start with the bedding manufacturers.I was wanting to start marketing with a simmons or serta or restonic. I initially developed this product for a large south african company but since then i have now seen the huge potential in the international markets. To be totally honest i think i have developed something that is going to be too big a project for me to handle. Any suggestions on who would be the big players to contact regarding all this. Thanks Dave regards Craig Wallace eco.base@yahoo.com

Obviously, cars and mattresses are two completely different consumer products however, we spend excessive amounts on cars and except a warranty period of an average 3-5 years. However, a mattress of an average ticket price of $750 should be at a minimum 10 years full. I never said to "avoid" the question of warranty, but I did say that it shouldn't be sold. I agree with you the over emphasis on warranty is a poor part of most presentations on the floor. There are a number of reasons for this that probably would give Dave an entire other article. But as I also said, as did the bedding 101 column, the emphasis needs to be on enhanced sleep and lifestyle benefit. When a salesperson fits the right mattress to the customer and displays value at said price point for the product and sells the service of the estalishment than questions such as warranty should easily fall into the same category as delivery procedures and payment.

o.k so after all of your selling, do you avoid the question of warranty? I don't know how the rest of retail works, you know different customer for different stores, but usually the first question after the pitch is the warranty and what it covers. Where we get into trouble is overselling the warranty instead of explaining what it is and what it actually covers. Last time I checked a mattress does not have as many moving or intricate parts as a car does. Therefore you have to compare apples to apples. Yes, a mattress gets more use, but there is not as many things to go wrong with a mattress as a car. Instead of spending so much time debating how long the warranty should last maybe we should debate how to teach our salesman how educate the customer on what they cover.

Selling warranties is a crutch for a salesperson, who maybe should not be on the sales floor. A warranty in its purest form is there to protect the consumer from defect, normally said defects will show up within the first 90 days, generally. What kills me is that we, as a society, purchase cars frequently in excess of $40000.00 with only 4-5 years of warranty and spend about 10 hours a week in our cars. Why is that the mattress which gets a third of our lifetime in use is supposed to last 10+ years. I read the sales 101 column last week and I think it was great to sell first the benefits of a healthy nights sleep and than the product, and never the warranty. We purchase TV's, cars, handbags, etc in astonishing amounts and at just as equally astonishing price tags, why is that? Because our lifestyle, status, and image will be improved. When in fact the only consumer product mentioned on this page, the mattress, will do any of that. It is good that the average american is finally waking up, or should I say going to sleep, with the fact that a good nights sleep does improve ones lifestyle, health, and overall well being.

I can confirm the comments regarding Ikeas' seemingly contadictory mattress claims at Australian stores.Evan the salesperson had difficulty explaining

Lynne Marie: Thanks for your post. Good point about mattress life exceeding comfort life. I'm glad your warranty program is working out well for you. Best wishes to you. -Dave

Dear Nato: What is different about Ikea is the way that company makes a strong case for replacing the bed every eight years or so. That message is prominent, and that's a good thing. How many other companies openly talk about dust mites in making a case for replacement? As for selling on warranties, I'm not a fan. I'm not saying it won't work, but I think we have many better things to sell than a long warranty. -Dave

so IKEA is covering the springs, wooden frame, foam core or slats against failure and you think this is a step forward? How is this any different than most bedding warranties that are out there now? Most of the complaints are due to impressions in the mattress that customers believe is a failure of the foam. I see no difference in them warranting a mattress for 25 or another dealer for 10 years. Most dealers, incuding IKEA, know how to get out of replacing a mattress with a wide array of excuses. I could warranty a mattress for 100 years and never have to replace it since somewhere in that time frame it will be damaged in someway by the customer such as staining, or even normal wear and tear. The big issue is selling sets of bedding. We are in the business to sell the product that our dealers put out. If there is a problem that is covered by the warranty, then by all means it must be replaced immediately. I'm not too proud to sell my customers on warranty if thats how they wish to make the purchase.