SPECIAL FEATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by Lauretta Converse

Go ahead. Put your ear to the door. What do you hear?

Many in the futon sleep sofa category believe it’s the sound of opportunity knocking.
Klaussner has introduced a futon sofa line. West Elm’s pricey catalog now sports futons. Stacks of Big Tree’s $499 model are on risers at Sam’s Club.

Players across the category are starting to believe that this is indeed the knock of great opportunity for futon sleep products. The move of mass merchandisers into the futon market is an acknowledgement of the high quality of today’s futon sofa sleepers. The once-lowly pine bi-fold has grown up, and can now take its place along side other premium bedding and sleep sofas. Its upscale designs and superior materials have caught the eye of mass merchants.
For these reasons, when retailers, manufacturers and importers listen closely to these changes, they hear the sound of opportunity knocking. Ask around and you’ll get a number of ideas on what it will take to open this door of opportunity.

Believe it!

Player: Sigmund Gordon, President
Company: At Home Furnishings
Manufacturer of futon sofa bed furniture
What it takes: Belief in product, not training

Sig Gordon believes that the opportunity to sell futon sofa sleepers to consumers has always been there. The problem has been selling the category to retailers and their buyers. And he should know.

Gordon has been around the futon sofa sleeper category long enough to be considered an expert by anyone’s standards. In the late seventies, he represented the category to countless full line furniture stores. The stores in which he was able to place futon product frequently abandoned futons within a year. At that time, futons were known as an alternative lifestyle product, and, “it’s hard to bring something ‘alternative’ into the mainstream,” Gordon laments.
Futon furniture’s reputation as an “alternative” product has been hard for the category to shake. What is acceptable for students to drag to college is not acceptable for someone’s living room. The futon’s reputation as “dorm furniture” has remained static for many years even though the category has matured, quality has improved and style has skyrocketed.
What will it take to open the door of opportunity for futon sofa sleepers in today’s market? Others may think it’s about sales training. They may think it’s a matter of educating a sales staff about the quality, value and features of futon sofa sleepers.

Sig, however, is convinced it’s all about sales associates believing. “You can do all of the sales training in the world, but until your sales force actually believes in the value of futons, no one will buy them.”

An effective sales force must be convinced in order to be convincing. Only when retailers, buyers and sales staff personally believe in the value, versatility and quality of futon sofa sleepers, will they be able to represent the category effectively. Only when they place a futon in their own homes, sleep a night on one, and enjoy its durable quality can futons make substantial headway in the mainstream furniture market.

Gordon hears opportunity knocking and he believes that the time has come for “us to push futons into mainstream stores. The quality is there now.”

Cover it!

Player: Dick Yargus,
Vice President, Sales and Marketing
Company: Largo International, Inc.
Importer and Manufacturer of Beds, Daybeds, Futons, Casual Dining and Case Goods
What it takes: Make it look like furniture

Dick Yargus knows the sound of futon sofa sleeper opportunity calling, and has been delivering futon sleepers to the mainstream furniture market for six or seven years now. As Vice President of Sales for a leading importer and manufacturer, Largo sells a whopping seventy percent of their futon product through furniture stores and only the small balance through specialty stores. He also knows what it will take to open the door to more opportunities for futon sofa sleepers in large furniture stores.

His advice? “Customers will quibble over the price of the mechanism (frame); they will negotiate over the price of the mattress. But when it comes to the cover, now you are talking about their home, and that’s when you can make your money.”

Futon sofa sleepers are often presented in the cold vocabulary of mechanics and coils, and are often promoted as mattresses. But the key to selling futons in a large scale furniture store setting, however, is to get away from that kind of presentation. Futons are successfully marketed when they appeal to a customer’s sense of sight, to their emotions, to their decorating sense.

Partnering with Cottonworks has been “an essential part” to the futon sleeper sofa’s success for Largo. Cottonworks supplies Largo with the luscious colors, patterns and designs that help present futon sleep sofas less like bedding and more like furniture. Customers can oogle, handle, dream and envision these covers in their own homes. “Why would anyone put a futon on their sales floor with only its muslin cover?” Yargus asks. By doing this, “most furniture stores are walking over money,” and missing a great opportunity.

Daybed sales “have exploded” since Largo moved to this “furniture” approach, Yargus reports. Their selection has focused less on metal daybeds and more on oak and cherry models with companion pieces, in settings that are fully decorated. He believes that the futon industry should follow the daybed’s example and present futon sleep sofas as furniture by showing them as completely decorated packages. The opportunities are there for the taking.

Rename it!

Player: Mark Montemurno,
brass/metal/daybed buyer
Company: Breuners Home Furnishings
Large chain entering futon sleeper category
What it takes: Think “sleeper convertible”

Breuners Home Furnishings operates under three brands of stores in three different regions of the country and in three different types of markets, but Mark Montemurno’s got an idea of what it’s going to take to successfully introduce futons into all three venues in September 2003. Think: “sleeper convertible”.

“We’ve seen the sleep sofa market boom in the last eighteen to twenty-four months and we are looking to add futon sleepers as an alternative to sleep sofas.” He is excited about welcoming futon sleepers because they will enable Breuners to address his thirty-five to fifty year old target customer. “Futons sofa sleepers will help us hit the lower edge of that better.”

Does this new sleep sofa option belong in the bedding department, with motion furniture, or with traditional sofa beds? This has been the “Big Question” at Breuners because these sleep sofas are a hybrid product: part bed, part sofa. Split personality. Because they are selling futons as a sleep sofa alternative, Breuners will show them in an area adjacent to traditional sleep sofas which, conveniently, is also adjacent to the brass, metal and daybeds.

In order to answer opportunity’s knock, Montemurno is ready to do battle with the futon category’s current reputation, lamenting “mass merchants have destroyed the futon product.” So Breuners has teamed up with Lifestyle Solutions who has coached Montemurno to market futons as a “sofa bed convertibles.” This change in lingo helps him differentiate his product from the low-quality, mass-marketed futons sold through big box stores. Those black metal or low-grade wood frames may be called futons. But the high quality, smartly designed items in Breuners showroom are referred to as sleeper convertibles.

“I wasn’t convinced” that futon sofa sleepers are really quality furniture. But now Montemurno is convinced. “They’ve come so far. They can work in so many contexts. They will continue to grow as a category.” Knock, knock.

Commit to it!

Player: Pete Parker,
Bedding/Futon Sleeper/Occasional Buyer
American Furniture Warehouse
Position: Large furniture store with extensive commitment to futon sofa sleeper category

When players in our category think of a full-line store with a full-time commitment to futons, they often think of American Furniture Warehouse. This nine store chain, with a corporate location in Colorado of over 635 thousand total square feet of warehouse and showroom, is the granddaddy of them all. How long have they carried futons? “Forever!” remarks Pete Parker.

American Furniture dominates their futon market by offering a soup to nuts selection of ten frames and thirteen mattresses. In an approximately five hundred square foot area, futon sleepers are showcased in vignette settings.

They also jump at the futon sofa sleeper opportunity by going after the business year round, not just in the fall or at back-to-school time. All year round, “we promote, we advertise, we merchandise” futon sleep products. “We treat them as a main line, not a side line.”

Parker sees future growth in the futon category and plans to expand their line and offer innovative models, opening the door to future opportunities. And as American Furniture has continued to add designer frames to its collection, Parker has seen more and more people considering futon sleep sofas for their homes.

American Furniture’s complete commitment to futon sofas is allowing them to take full advantage of the category. And new opportunities continue to knock as new metals, such as pewter, along with new looks in wood and new premium mattresses have a place in American Furniture Warehouse’s successful and complete commitment to the futon sofa sleepers.

Knock, Knock

Opportunity’s knocking at the door of the futon sofa sleeper category. Other segments of the furniture industry want to be part of what insiders have known all along: the futon sleeper sofa is an alternative to the traditional sleep sofa, packed with value and quality.

Fortunately, this door of opportunity has a peephole to catch a glimpse of what’s about to greet the category. All around the futon industry, players are unwilling to ignore opportunity’s knock and open-minded about how to respond. They’ve glanced through the peephole and provided a sneak peek at how to respond to opportunity’s knock.

Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Open who?
Open the door and find out!

FL

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