HIGH POINT — A panel of bedding industry leaders tackled the elephant in the living room at last week’s Furniture Today Leadership Conference, sharing their insights the COVID-19 disruption to the bedding business and why they believe the industry is bouncing back.
“Order writing continues to be strong, in the double digits, and I feel confident that will continue into 2021,” said Melanie Huet, executive vice president of Serta Simmons Bedding. “We see lots of nesting trends, home remodeling and people moving to larger homes, which is all very positive for the bedding industry.”
In addition to Huet, the panel moderated by Executive Editor David Perry included Michael Magnuson, CEO of GoodBed.com, and Bob McCarthy, head of retail distribution for Resident Home.
Those sales are being fueled in large part by a shift by consumers to spending more of their purchasing journey and decision-making process in the online realm, said Magnuson. He noted that a couple of the key changes are that the in-store experience is becoming more of what he called a “confirmatory step” and that more consumers are willing to buy online without ever trying it in the store.
McCarthy agreed that the significance of the online bedding consumer as the industry looks ahead. “In-store has come back strong,” he said, “but direct-to-consumer is not going back to pre-COVID-19 levels.”
The panel also discussed the role of import regulations and supply chain issues as disruptors to the bedding industry.
Huet and McCarthy both noted that bedding manufacturing has already started to shift to other countries, and they believe those adjustments will continue to be made without huge disruption to the industry.
Supply chain issues are a larger issue to contend with. “It’s been very disruptive,” Huet said, noting shortages of non-wovens and IWC units.
McCarthy added that Resident’s supply chain is “in as good a place as anybody right now. It’s been a challenge.”
One effect of all this disruption is that retail prices will go up as a result. “Historically, this is a good time for the industry to absorb price increases given the demand right now,” said Magnuson. “Demand is strong enough (for prices) to be absorbed without a whole lot of disruption.”
He added that one other disruptor is review sites. “In many cases it’s preventing consumers from even finding the retail stores,” he said.
Magnuson suggested that the best defense is through messaging to the consumer, “getting the truth out there,” and putting out online content that garners great search results.
