Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
Bedding Leads the Way
November 15,
2012 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in on November 2012
The good news for home furnishings retailers with an assortment of bedding on their floors is that Baby Boomers present an opportunity on the higher-priced end, a bedding industry that Specialty Sleep Association (SSA) President Dale Read describes as a dumbbell.
Home Furnishings Business asked Read for his take on how well vendors are doing in first, addressing health/ergonomic issues with boomers; and second, how well and truthfully theyre telling their value story, and how thats translating at retail. Overall, he said pretty well.
I think it depends upon the dollars the consumer has to spend(vendors) were moving strongly to addressing the health issues and benefits before the economic collapse, Read said. Now, the bedding department is a dumbbellat one end, the low end, you have the $399, $499, $599 mattresses. ¦ Theres a portion on the other end of the dumbbell of $2,400, $2,500 and up beds that have addressed ergonomic and structural health issues. The middle$600 to $1,200 bedshas faded a lot, and that used to be the heart of the business.
Boomers remain a prosperous demographic relative to others, and more of them are feeling their age, which is good news at the upper end.
If they have the health issues, if they have the disposable income, theyre willing to pay more, Read said. They want products that address the ergonomic health issue and the green/safety issue. In the green area, 15 percent will pay more, substantially more.
There are two different issues, physiological versus do I have a healthy item in our house, he said. Boomers who want to shop and find the right solution, and have the disposable income, they can do it.
ERGONOMICS AND HEALTH
Read identified three aspects to ergonomic/health factors in bedding: the products fundamental support structure (i.e., coils, foam); conforming to the body (surface pressure, tension); and overall comfort aspect (does it absorb sweat, cool easily?).
Your choices are all over the place, and manufacturers are pretty open about telling you what they offer, he said. And the whole notion of better sleep can translate well at retail.
Beware overselling a mattress for its health benefits, he cautioned.
While better sleep is an important part of health, youre not going to cure cancer with these beds, Read noted. A person isnt going to suddenly feel better if they already have other chronic health issues. Better sleep will help, but (a mattress) is not a health product per se.
THE GREEN QUESTION
Environmental-friendliness is an important factor in a mattress purchase for, if not a majority, a significant number of consumers.
Our research shows around 70 percent of the market doesnt see having a green product as an important part of the purchase, Read said. But that leaves 30 percent who do, and half of those said they would pay more, considerably more.
If you ask the broader question in the context of what consumers, particularly baby boomers, are interested in, they do want a healthy, quality and green product if they can get it. Its hard to answer in light of the economy.
One problem Read sees is that with the exception of those who really specialize, a lot of retail sales associates dont really know how to tell that part of the story.
Most retail sales associates do know their productstheyre forced tobut there was a time people walked in and said heres my soy bed, and it turned out the oil content was 15 percent soy, Read said.
Hes hoping the SSAs truth-in-contents labeling program will help both sales associates and their customers.
Two years ago, SSA created a two-step label and seal that appears on mattresses from participating manufacturers that inform the consumer about the minimum environmental and safety compliance levels the particular product adheres to, along with a label that lists components in the mattress.
Manufacturers in the program pay a fee to the SSA to use the label and seal, and complete an extensive application process with documentation that backs up claims.
Consumers wanting further information beyond the seal and label can go the SSAs Web site, SleepInformation.org, for more detailed information and can contact the organization if they wish to learn more about a specific manufacturers component filing.
To display the Level I seal, a manufacturer must meet all federal safety flammability requirements; provide a warranty for the product; meet all safety requirements for childrens products if applicable; disclose material construction with a descriptive label content; participate in an annual survey to identify carbon footprint issues and that it has committed to continuous improvement; and meet standards set by the Montreal Protocol Act, when applicable, for reduction or elimination of ozone depleting substances.
For the Level II seal, a manufacturer must meet all the requirements of the first threshold and in addition: meet California Section 1350 testing for low VOC emissions and validate that the mattress textile covering contains no harmful substances.
To find out more, visit this link:
SleepInformation.org/environmental.html.
Read is hoping more manufacturers will participate.
There are so few participants in the SSA program that you would have to say the mattress industry really isnt educating the consumer about what theyre bringing into their home, he said. Weve failed to communicate well enough to retailers that they dont need this label on every product in their store ¦ but for that 15 percent, they can get substantially more money. People will pay serious money for organic products if they believe youve substantiated the products claims.
When talking comfort, versus health and green, the bedding sectors doing well.
What I hear is the coolant, the gels are huge in the mattress industry, and the heavy marketing behind things like the Serta iComfort has it out in front of people, Read said. The mattress industry is always searching for the next big thing, and even the low-end guys are responding to gel, but thats not a health issue, its about comfort.