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David Perry

Mattress Giant touts pillows, better sleep

TOUR UPDATE: Today our week of retail visits comes to an end. It’s been a great experience. I’ve had a blast being a participant on this retail bedding tour, which Leggett & Platt calls its Spring Alive Tour. 

L&P executive Mark Quinn has been a great host, bringing some top consultants to each of the bedding retailers we visited this week. Sure L&P has an innerspring message, but it has added real value to its visits with bedding experts.

This has been a week of total immersion on the retail side of the business. It has been an intense experience, but also a rewarding one. I feel like we are just getting started. But now the tour ends and we all get back to our regular jobs. The need to promote better sleep continues, of course. Hopefully this tour has planted some fruitful seeds for that cause.

As I write this we are at a terminal in Albuquerque, N.M., where we have stopped to refuel on our trip to Los Angeles. Our day began in Dallas, where we met two top Mattress Giant executives for lunch and a tour of the Arlington, Texas store. Terri Stephens and Sharon Smart of Mattress Giant were our hosts.

I really like what Mattress Giant is doing to make pillows an integral part of the mattress shopping experience. Smart, director of training, told me how the retailer introduces its customers – which it calls “guests” – to pillows at the beginning of the shopping experience. That’s not standard operating procedure, and that’s the point. And it’s one of the things that Mattress Giant does to stand apart from the pack. Very impressive.

BETTER SLEEP MOMENT: Are women better equipped and better able to tell consumers about the benefits of better sleep? Yes, said the eight women who attended a focus group narrated by consultant Kurt Ling. The women said that women can connect with them on an emotional level and talk convincingly about the benefits of better sleep. One of the Mattress Giant executives watching the focus group said the message was clear: Hire more female sales associates.

INSIGHT OF THE DAY: “The industry realizes that retailers hold the key” to building momentum for better sleep messages, said Terri Stephens, vice president of marketing and advertising at Mattress Giant. Retailers can join with manufacturers and other companies, like Leggett & Platt, to form a partnership to promote the benefits of selling better sleep, she said.

THE VIEW FROM 25,000 FEET (LITERALLY): Our L&P pilots this week have been Kent Egger and Richard Schneider. They kept our Hawker 400XP, a fast jet, in fine trim. The plane flies at about 500 miles per hour at altitudes from 25,000 to 38,000 feet. So we really have had a 25,000-foot perspective on the world. And thanks to the L&P jet, we were able to adjust our travel schedule as needed – commercial airlines wouldn’t have waited for me to get my copy filed each day – and get us to our big and small airfields without incident. Great job, guys.

THE VIEW FROM 25,000 FEET (FIGURATIVELY): Bedding retailers have to do a lot of things right to be successful these days. The best retailers know their customers, give their sales associates solid training, carry a broad selection of bedding lines, provide great service, and execute each and every day. Most retailers know what they should do to be successful. But actually doing the right things day in and day out can be a challenge.

SPRINGING FORWARD: L&P cites improved air circulation as one of the benefits of innerspring bedding. It says the Active Support Technology in its innerspring coils creates air exchange inside the mattress. “It literally is a breathing apparatus for the mattress,” says L&P executive Niels Mossbeck. “Without air exchange, heat can build up in a mattress, affecting temperature and air conditions.”

Heat build-up can be a potential problem with some alternative sleep surfaces, according to L&P. I hear that from some bedding producers and consumers, too.

TOMORROW I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT: Hey, tomorrow I’m on my way home. More on the Spring Alive Tour next week.

FOR MORE ON THE TOUR: See Leggett & Platt’s special Web site, www.LeggettSleep.com, for daily tour updates.