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Originally Posted by
drcollie
Back in the late 80's we had (4) display Queen beds on the floor from my better woodworkers. We needed bedding for them to make them look nice, so I got a King Koil dealership, mainly just to get wholesale pricing so I could get those four sets for the floor. I had no interest in selling bedding, none. Customers starting buying the King Koil sets, because it was one-stop shopping. So it got to where we sold a box and mattress with almost every hardwood bed frame sale. Clients assumed the bedding was high quality as that's all we have ever sold at The Keeping Room. I had a lot of sets out there, and around the 6-year mark they all started failing. LOTS OF THEM. The compression dips and ridges in the middle. That's when I found out about how well the bedding industry stands behind their warranties. Not. It was ugly. I don't like customer complaints and there were dozens of them with King Koil beds we had sold.
So I set out to find out who makes good bedding, and that led me to Shifman our of New Jersey and Royal Pedic out of California. In the USA, they were considered the top makers, and yes, they cost considerably more than mainstream production beds. That was OK, because quality does cost, and its better than customer complaints. I went with Shifman, because their shipping costs were quite a bit less than bringing in beds from California. And the Shifman Master's Collection was great. Trouble was, Bloomingdale's also sold it, and they complained as I was underselling them about 22% per unit. Shifman responded by dropping me as a dealer, because Bloomie's was threatening to get out of the line otherwise. That meant I went to Royal Pedic, which is where I am today.
And I'm still not interested in being a bedding store. I have a high-line product with R.P, and its not cheap to buy. Most people buy bedding on price points, and I don't have the energy to spend hours trying to convince a customer why they should spend twice as much on one vs a Sealy, Simmons, etc. I sell a dozen sets a year or so, and that's fine. I keep the dealership to have units to put in my floor models and also to buy bedding for myself and family. There's a pretty high satisfaction level with clients that do buy Royal-Pedic however, I don't get complaints on the line, and they last twice as long as conventional beds, so its all good.