I always find many things to like at my local home furnishings event, which happens to be the High Point Market. Here, in no particular order, were five of my favorite things in mattress showrooms at the recent market.
No. 1: The taco truck at Paramount Sleep. It pulled up in front of the company’s South Wrenn Street showroom and fueled its well-attended market party, held on Sunday afternoon. Fortified with chips, guacamole, salsa and a variety of tacos, Paramount’s guests caught up on the latest developments in Mattressville.
Paramount has been holding social events to boost its High Point showing, and its latest offering was a big draw, attracting top suppliers and retailers, not to mention one of the industry’s top mattress writers. (Well, in my defense, there aren’t a huge number of mattress writers out there.)
I had good visits with Joe Lyon of Leggett & Platt, Iv Culp of Culp Inc. and Robbie Daniels of Fairfield, Ohio-based Furniture Fair, among others. And as the party stretched into the evening, still going strong, I was reminded, yet again, of the strong bonds that knit the mattress industry together.
No. 2: A nice Tommy Bahama boxed bed. That was one of half a dozen Tommy Bahama mattresses that Therapedic brought to High Point as it returned to the Furniture Capital of the World, showing in the Lifestyle Enterprise showroom.
The Tommy Bahama mattresses, aimed at consumers seeking higher-quality goods, retailed from $999 to $2,499, and that boxed bed targeted the $1,699 price point. Therapedic CEO Gerry Borreggine says boxed beds need not be limited to promotional models, and the Tommy Bahama BIB (bed in box, if you don’t know that abbreviation) made that point. Boxed beds command a substantial market share already, and look to gain more ground, in Borreggine’s view. I agree with him.
No. 3. Shifman’s fancy elevator seating. Sure, we usually stand up in elevators, but what if you want to take a seat and let the elevator lift your market experience? Shifman Mattresses did just that, turning its elevator into a fancy boudoir, complete with art on the walls, a chandelier, and a comfy chaise lounge chair.
Admittedly the elevator journey was a rather brief one; Shifman has showrooms on the second and third floors in its showroom building facing Martin Luther King Drive. But the company made its point: Its premium mattresses deserve a premium showing.
Especially impressive are the three mattresses in the company’s 1893 line, which salutes the year Shifman was founded. (And if you missed my market story on the clever naming convention used for those mattresses, you can read it here.)
No. 4: Bedgear’s “Let Nature Rest” wall display. It notes, in graphic, powerful form, the huge number of mattresses thrown out in the U.S. each year, a figure it puts at 18.2 million. That translates to 50,000 mattresses every day, which would be a stack of mattresses taller than Mount Everest. The 1.5 million mattresses thrown out each month would reach the International Space Station, the chart said.
Bedgear noted that high return rates and exchanges lead to more mattresses winding up in landfills and said it is on a mission to offer personalized products that fit consumers’ needs the first time.
That is a compelling presentation.
No. 5: The new mattress color at AW Industries. And that new color is … drum roll, please … white. Yes, in a marketplace that is painted with strong grays, blacks and blues, AW Industries is going back to the basics with white-on-white designs in its revamped Silentnight line. And the higher-priced models added a nice accent color: black.
Adrian Wertz, AW’s vice president of sales, says the return to white covers recalls the looks that were popular two decades ago. “What’s old is new,” he told me. I agree. And that makes me wonder: Will a wave of beige covers be coming soon?
