The manufacturer–retailer relationship is a complex pas de deux, with many opportunities to work beautifully together to sell more and better bedding, but also plenty of chances to misstep and trounce on each other’s toes.
BedTimes spoke with a cast of industry insiders—from small retailers to large manufacturers, plus a few consultants and industry observers—to assess the current performance of both partners.
We put a number of questions to the group, focusing on the manufacturer’s role in aiding retailers but also asking what retailers can do to support the mattress brands they sell on their showroom floors. Their comments ranged from praise to prescription to provocation. As is often the case when talking about this hot topic, everyone had something interesting to say.
Surviving tough times together
The difficult economy is testing the entire industry and reminds everyone that players in the mattress business will rise—or sink—together. For retailers to get consumers to walk through the door and part with precious cash for a new mattress, manufacturers have had to redesign products with “value” top of mind. And they’ve had to re–evaluate priorities, focusing on what retailers say they want most.
Stuart Carlitz, president of Eclipse International and Eastman House, North Brunswick, N.J. “We’ve seen so many retailers come and go in this economy. Now we offer our ‘exotic’ features at $699 to $999. We’ve packed more ammunition into the more moderate price points. We tailor a collection to fit into the price points they’re looking for, so they can survive. And that’s what it’s about today—survival.”
Barrie Brown, principal of et oyeblikk: Retail Strategies LLC and interim chief executive officer of Factory Warehouse, Dallas “The greatest help manufacturers have provided to retailers in the past two years was developing better values and better pricing. They’ve done a lot of value engineering.”
Jamie Piper, director of marketing communications for Sealy, Trinity, N.C. “The economic environment has been difficult for everyone, but it hasn’t impacted our focus on making sure we continue to develop and nurture our relationships. We are always looking for opportunities to collaborate with retailers.”
Rick Robinson, president of Spring Air International, Boston “The first place bedding companies look to cut when they’re trying to lower their overhead cost is sales training and advertising, but we can’t afford to do that and have probably increased the percentage of dollars we spend on this. In fact, we’re expanding our sales training budget for next year and looking to do more with video training.”
Whose brand is it?
Both retailers and mattress manufacturers have to create and market their own brands to be successful and stay in business. That means a lot of competing brand promotion at the retail level. As the comments indicate, this is an area in which striking the right balance remains a challenge.
Cindy Williams, vice president of retail strategy at Info Retail Inc., Atlanta “There is a constant pull between manufacturers and retailers because each wants to be the brand. Stores can quickly become very cluttered and confusing. But it is possible for manufacturers to get their pure brand message out there without pushing the RSA out of the process. A couple of manufacturers have been successful at it. Good POP also allows the RSA to hear the message over and over so they are able to sell more expensive products.”
Don Wright, chief marketing officer, Wright of Thomasville, Thomasville, N.C. “I think most retailers do a good job of branding themselves and it’s becoming more of a collaborative effort between those retailers and their manufacturers. With a few notable exceptions, there is not enough consistent national brand support happening in the industry. Once you get consumers inside, you’ve got to create a destination within the store. The surf industry is a good example—they use the windows, front doors, floors. The minute a customer arrives in the parking lot, brand messaging starts.”
Gerry Morris, president of Inner Spring professional training and coaching, Dallas “The branding breakdown comes in at the retail level. Manufacturers do a good job of creating a message about lifestyle and sleep, but retailers go to ‘swing–the–door’ merchandising in a competition for the lowest prices.”
Chuck Kill, chief executive officer of Bedmart, Tucson, Ariz. “When we advertise, we are promoting our brand, the Bedmart brand, more so than the manufacturer’s. We want you to shop our store because of who we are, not what we sell—so we try to emphasize our own brand.”
Eric Hinshaw, chairman and chief executive officer of Kingsdown, Mebane, N.C. “Retailers must have a reason behind each line they carry. Whatever each line’s brand promise, it’s incumbent upon retailers to make sure their manufacturers deliver on that promise. Retailers must also develop a brand promise that sets them apart in their market and they need to deliver. Unfortunately, most have created a brand promise around price, but if the consumer uses price as their surrogate to other knowledge, then the retailer becomes insignificant. We are trying to help retailers differentiate through the better sleep concept.”
Gary Fazio, chief executive officer, Simmons Bedding Co., Atlanta “A retailer must have their own brand if they’re to survive and thrive. They must figure out their reason for being in business. Then the two brands (retail and mattress) can be married together.”
Thoughts on training
Manufacturer–provided sales and product training is an industry fundamental that’s rapidly evolving, mostly because of technological advancements but also because of concerns about the cost of having an army of sales reps out personally visiting stores. (See the section “The new role of technology” on Page 26.) Retailers offered both rants and raves on the quality of the training provided by bed makers. Manufacturers say they strive to tailor their training programs to each retailer’s particular style of selling, but that high turnover at retail continues to hinder the effectiveness of even the best training programs.
Herman Tam, vice president of sales and marketing, Leggett & Platt’s Consumer Products Group, Whittier, Calif. “Training is more important than ever before because consumers do their research online before shopping. Many walk in filled with information—and misinformation. Manufacturers can provide scripts to retailers that use a low–pressure selling approach. Retailers should train RSAs to be helpers instead of sellers striving for a sales goal.”
Roger Cunningham, owner of The Bed Store, Knoxville, Tenn. “Reps come in (and) they know their brands and offer technical information. But we need trainers that understand how to deal with the consumer and their No. 1 issue—that they don’t trust us. There was a day when reps were good and understood their jobs, and trainers really trained, but standards have declined.”
Kill/Bedmart “The manufacturers we work with are interested in our input. They work with us on many levels and help us sell a great night’s sleep. We find that our reps are very good at training the skills and techniques that we want our sleep consultants to have for our stores. They visit often and we hold seminars once a week in different regions. We also have training programs by manufacturers in their plants and our people get a specialized class on products and specs. We sit down with the manufacturer ahead of time to make sure the training is appropriate to what we want RSAs to know.”
Morris/Inner Spring “RSAs are often a transient group who take the path of least resistance to make the sale. Bedding is a category of goods that requires much product knowledge and selling skills, and bedding makers and their reps have provided the best sales training in the home furnishings industry. Recently, however, there has been a trend toward hiring bedding reps with no background in the industry. Manufacturers need to do a better job of training their own staff.”
Lisa Stansbury, vice president of Fred’s Beds, Wilmington, N.C. “I appreciate when my reps work with our salespeople, look at the line and help tweak things. I like vendors that stay in touch regularly and would like more time with my reps. You learn something from every conversation. The fact is, whoever is most accessible, that’s who you’ll buy from.”
Fazio/Simmons “Retailers don’t have a lot of places to go to get educated and can’t spend the time to research and develop the things they need to be more successful. It’s our job to educate them and tailor our message to whatever their regimen and training is. Ask the right questions: Make sure you’re talking about their business—not your own. We want to sell with our retailers, not to them. That means we have to sell through to the end–consumer together.”
Robinson/Spring Air “Retailers may be dealing with a bunch of different product categories. To gain the confidence of consumers, they need to be knowledgeable. It’s up to us to train them. Three of us here cut our teeth as national sales trainers. We know the value of it. A mentor once told me, ‘When training reps, tell them to hang onto the steering wheel for an extra 60 seconds when arriving at a (retailer) appointment and think, “What can I help teach someone today that will help win share of mind?” ’ ”
Hinshaw/Kingsdown “In our monthly newsletter to retailers, we talk about developing your own educational processes. We offer sleep education seminars and one–on–one teaching formats to enable the retail salesperson to understand and engage the customer in a sleep discussion. We’re very committed to selling our brand and it all relates back to sleep. It’s incumbent on the salesperson to work sleep into the discussion upfront and for our retailers to be dedicated to this.”
Carlitz/Eclipse & Eastman House “Many of our retailers look to us for direction. We show them how to improve their business, how to sell up into better merchandise and talk about our patented features. Today we’re growing our market share by extending our relationships in every direction. Many new dealers are small mom–and–pops owned by recent immigrants. There’s a whole resurgence in this business. We have a multilingual advertising campaign with the tag ‘Eclipse spells sleep in any language.’ Most sales training is done in–store with video coming soon. We also conduct seminars and tours at our factory. RSAs watch the construction of their top bed and their opening price point—so they can see the difference and be able to talk about it.”
Wright/Wright of Thomasville “Consumers have a higher expectation now at the point of contact with the RSA. They need to feel comfortable within the shopping environment and make a connection with the salesperson. And retailers are getting it. There is a lot more training going on at retail and that’s critical. The quality of the buying experience in the past 10 years has grown much more professional.”
Williams/Info Retail “Manufacturers need to work closely with at least their A and B customers to keep up with training and integrate it to the retailer. RSAs constantly struggle to keep products and attributes straight and there is such turnover at retail. Concentrate training on how to sell mattresses generally—that’s most helpful. Web–based training is great because it’s easy to access and can be viewed over and over.”
Perceptions of POP programs
As part of their own branding efforts, manufacturers produce an enormous array of point–of–purchase materials, with items ranging from logo– and copy–intensive to mood–evoking. Several retailers told BedTimes they prefer a streamlined display and limit manufacturers’ POP. As a result, some manufacturers pack a lot more information and demo units onto foot protectors.
Cunningham/The Bed Store “We produce large lifestyle pictures ourselves to brand the store and the ‘better sleep’ concept. Major manufacturers are finally getting on–the–bed right. They’ve softened it up. It’s been pioneered by smaller players—the nicely embroidered fabrics, etc. It has strong feminine appeal and is very tactile. The Big Ss are paying attention now and listening because they see little guys making progress with these looks.”
Robinson/Spring Air “We made a concerted effort to moveaway from point–of–sale materials that are all about Spring Air. Instead, we try to visually communicate to whoever is standing at the foot of the bed how that product is going to help them. We have also produced a wealth of advertising and promotional materials available at an FTP site designed to assist retailers.”
Kill/Bedmart “We find that vendors are getting better and better in the types of POP they provide. Their offerings are constantly evolving. We use ceiling banners, foot streamers and other items.”
Gerry Borreggine, president of Therapedic International, Princeton, N.J. “We’ve concentrated on evolving to a more sophisticated approach with enhanced POP that is more compelling and explains to the consumer why this is a good investment. We understand that mattress retailers are looking for more help as they compete against myriad new and exciting products such as HDTVs and exotic audio equipment and fight for those disposable income dollars. In the recession, we’ve absorbed more of the cost of POP—it’s been our challenge. But it’s very important to us for brand building. POP needs to be even more logical and persuasive for second–tier manufacturers because they are not the top–of–mind brands.”
Carlitz/Eclipse & Eastman House “Our salesman walks in with an iPad that shows all that we offer, which is a full array of wall banners, neon lights, Lucites, pillow shams, footers. We’d also like retailers to consider creating a more comfortable sleep shop environment, perhaps with cubicles or half walls for privacy, softer lighting, artwork on the ceiling—someplace consumers will feel more comfortable spending more time.”
Fazio/Simmons “If a retailer wants it clean and spare at retail, that’s their decision. But you don’t want to lose the opportunity to draw attention to your floor. It benefits the store and benefits the consumer. POP must be quick to grab attention and easy to understand.”
Hinshaw/Kingsdown “Everyone has pretty pictures of people sleeping, but they need to provide information on how to buy a bed and why you should care about sleep. We use stenciling on the walls, signage, banners and much is electronic now. It all points to our message that the product you’re buying is of much greater importance than you thought.”
Stansbury/Fred’s Beds “We like handing out manufacturers’ brochures. It’s amazing how they add credibility and trust. It really helps the sales associate, too, to have something in their hand as they’re talking.”
Wright/Wright of Thomasville “With more technical features being introduced to beds, the methods of communicating these features is evolving. We’re seeing a trend towards more technically focused point–of–sale messaging. As a result, the tools for delivering these messages are also becoming more technically advanced. Digital signage, interactive kiosks and QR codes are being used to help sell the products. It’s all about engaging the consumer and showing them what differentiates your product from the others on the floor.”
The role of new technology
Whether it’s impacting training methods or changing point–of–sale materials, new technology and new media are spicing up the manufacturer–retailer relationship, opening new lines of communication that go straight through to the ultimate consumer.
Piper/Sealy “We’re taking relationships with retailers to the next level. A key objective is for us to become their No. 1 marketing and online partner. We’re working collaboratively with retailers on their website redesigns and advising them on what makes the most sense when it comes to social media. Online training is a top priority, too. Sealy retailers have open access to our University of Sleep website. It’s interactive with courses and quizzes. The new Embody by Sealy brand launch has the most used courses ever. Now we are offering customized training pages for specific retailers. With next year’s launches, we’re looking at new ways to convey information via all kinds of digital devices, to make it more interactive and more fun for the retail sales associate. We also offer the Retail Advertising Toolbox, a website for all of our retail partners to access. We’re building the content and functionality so it’s an even better asset to retailers.”
Michael Nermon, founder and president of Ergo Customized Comfort, Irvine, Calif. “Smart technology like QR tags are ‘here and now.’ We’re excited about technology finding its way into manufacturers’ product lines. Technology is a way to avoid all the clutter around the product—we don’t want to bombard customers. We also have a big–screen TV and DVD player with comfortable seating arranged in the middle of the showroom for customers to sit and watch educational materials. Most of what I get from manufacturers is geared toward sales training but hopefully that’s changing.”
Owen Shoemaker, senior vice president of product development, Comfort Solutions, Willowbrook, Ill. “Technology is increasingly an important part of the relationship. Our new website went live in September. It reflects our social media connectivity on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on. We can help retailers increase sales with in–store and online tools that empower sales reps and provide advantages to consumers, too.”
Dick James, owner of Blackberry Creek Mattress Outlet, Boone, N.C. “Big companies are dabbling in social media, but no one is doing anything of significance. It’s something we all need to understand—a new communication network for reaching consumers, but it must be a cooperative effort. If I blog and tweet, manufacturers need to have similar involvement and be saying the same things.”
Williams/Info Retail “Digital media is a great way to engage the consumer. It can be interactive and collect data from consumers—even measuring how long someone stands in front of a display. Manufacturers can provide digital tools that get their brand message out in conjunction with retailers’ messages. Improving the retail environment with digital tools may also help attract a better caliber of retail salesperson.”
What retailers really want
BedTimes gave a few interviewees who have a retail perspective the last word, asking what they want most from manufacturers moving forward.
James/Blackberry Creek “We all need greater sensitivity to consumers. In the aircraft industry, there was a revolution and all of a sudden customers were brought in to help design the planes. It resulted in many engineering changes. I’d like to see more of that in the bedding industry—you’d see lots more retailers and, ultimately consumers, meeting together in groups and talking about their needs related to bed design and the selling process. Manufacturers must be interested in bringing us all together.”
Williams/Info Retail “A real collaboration between manufacturers and retailers would mean putting the customer at the forefront and honoring the desire of the female shopper to have a good experience. Consumers gain all their information at manufacturers’ websites then they go shopping and can’t find the products they saw. Agree as an industry that we’ll start listening to the voice of the consumer so she stops hating the mattress shopping process.”
Nermon/Ergo Customized Comfort “We’d like manufacturers to supply us with turnkey content for our website—too often it’s scattered about and unfocused. An image library with captions is basic. Add a long and short description version for each product. Let retailers decide what they want to use on their site since we don’t usually refer consumers to a manufacturer’s site. We want them to stay at ours.”
Cunningham/The Bed Store “We would like manufacturers to listen more and to prove they are listening by making changes. We’d like them to create better value and really resonate with good merchandising, advertising and training. Instead of treating each other as necessary evils—there must be more mutual respect. A reconnection is needed.”
Brown/et oyeblikk: Retail Strategies and Factory Warehouse “I’d like to see an end to all the distrust—it’s been well deserved on both sides through the years. The challenge is to treat this as a partnership—not a transaction—and to work collaboratively. In a perfect world, consumers would value and think about their sleep, so retailers wouldn’t need to talk about products, prices and promotions versus sleep. Let’s come up with a message to consumers that resonates—if people only knew all the great things a new mattress could do for them. Manufacturers need to provide even more support, information and do research on consumer trends and sleep so that those messages can get out to the public through the retail community.”
