Tony Kellerman, owner of Royal Pedic, stopped in my store today and we chatted the bedding business for about an hour and a half before he was off to a training meeting with his largest account, the chain of Yves Delorme. We spend a lot of time talking about market penetration and how to sell the line. As regular readers know, I'm a HUGE fan of Royal Pedic and sleep on one every night as well as have them in two of our guest bedrooms at my house.

In my opinion, I said to Tony that I think the average consumer is terribly confused when mattress shopping. There is so much smoke and mirrors, its hard to find the truth about quality bedding and as a result, most consumers just punt and buy a mattress based on price, with the thought process being "I'll buy the one closest to my budget and be done with it". Or, they get whatever is at Costco and if younger, one of those dreadful mattresses in a box by Casper, or similar. Bed sales are driven by marketing (smoke and mirrors). Continuing on that path, my opinion is they can never just put a Royal Pedic in a large store and expect it to sell on the tagged price, they are too expensive and 95% of consumers will just keep walking saying "I'm not paying that for a bed". Their brand is only going to prosper in Owner/Operator stores, where the people in the store believe in the brand and can take the time to explain it.

By far, the biggest selling point in a Royal Pedic is they don't degrade over time like conventional foam beds. It will sleep and feel just as good in ten years as the day it was new, whereas the foam beds really last 5 years, but people push them to 7 to 9 years before replacing them. How do you get that message across? There's no way to really prove it, other than doing testimonials, but who really pays attention to those? I know I don't.

I asked Tony for some Promotions, to have an occasional sale period. He is not really a fan of that, because it conditions buyers to wait for a sale period. To some degree, I agree with that, but then you can always change up the promotion to not make it the same every time. We have never had a supported sale period on Royal Pedic in all the years I have been a dealers, maybe I can change his mind on that....not sure.

I also suggest they put a "Made in the USA" label on all their product, sewn onto the label. They are handmade in Los Angeles CA one at a time, and that's something to be proud about.

I have no issues with the cost. Others would say "Too Expensive". As Jack Glasheen, founder of Hancock & Moore once said to me "Nice things cost Money, Duane"