A Retailer’s Guide to Metal Beds

Top Metal Bed Picks for Your Customers

Originally, metal beds were known as “campaign beds” because they were intended for traveling military officers and could be folded up. Later, metal beds became popular for household use as well because they were impervious to a common nuisance: bedbugs. Without the cracks and crevices of wooden beds, metal beds gave pests nowhere to hide.

Today’s consumers, however, are choosing metal beds for less mundane reasons. In fact, there are plenty of fun and fanciful, elegant and enduring reasons to choose today’s metal beds. There is one in every style, material and finish and for every customer in this expanding category. Here are top picks for your customers.

For “brand-lovers”: The clear choice for shoppers who want the prestige of a name brand metal bed is Wesley Allen. Their beds are direct marketed to consumers through ads in top women’s magazines that point consumers to local retailers. It’s no wonder Wesley Allen calls their product “the most asked-for iron bed in the world.” With over 100 styles custom ordered in over 30 different finishes, customers don’t have to settle for a lesser match, but can say, “I got exactly what I wanted.”

For smaller bedrooms: A gloriously extravagant, opulently over-sized metal bed makes a bold declaration in a bedroom. But are your customers looking to make a super-sized statement in a smaller bedroom? Manufacturers are offering solutions.

Wesley Allen offers a handful of open-toe style frames with classy, understated return posts at the end of the bed in lieu of a footboard. Hillsdale Furniture offers metal beds with a scooped footboard, which makes the size of the bed more visually appropriate for a smaller bedroom. Another plus of these styles: television viewing is easier.

For unique, hand-made beds: A consumer backlash against vanilla-plain, mass-produced furniture is mounting across all furniture categories. Consumers are increasingly looking for unique products with which to personalize their homes. For customers desiring to splurge on individually handcrafted metal beds, look to Corsican Swan Brass Beds for high-end beds. One-of-a-kind designs and top-of-the-line materials are hand-finished in the United States with unique rustic finishes and are completely customizable. My pick: style 2850, known as the “matrimonial bed,” is almost nine feet high and retails for $10,000.

 

For metal beds with companion case goods: While wooden beds are offered in collections with companion pieces galore, this is not the case with most metal beds. Metal bed manufacturers typically offer coordinating mirrors and bedside tables, but don’t look to them for the full line of case goods that accompany wooden bedroom collections. Instead, manufacturers offer powdercoat finishes that mix and match with other furnishings. For customers wanting to purchase metal beds with coordinating options such as dressers, nightstands, chests and armoires, look to Pietrarte’s two collections of case goods whose feet and hardware coordinate handsomely with their iron beds without being “matchy-matchy.”

For mattress-purchase add ons: With the average price points for today’s mattress sets on the rise, retailers are strategically offering metal beds in the $199-$399 range as add-ons to their mattress customers. Metal beds at these entry price points are attractive to customers who are purchasing a new size bed, updating an existing bedroom set or purchasing bedding for a secondary bedroom.

Hillsdale Furniture targets this market with an explosion of focused offerings at these price points. “We're more focused on entry price points. We carry the price points that turn, and our value is best in the industry,” said John Elting, CO-CEO. Fashion Bed Group also has a full range of metal beds at introductory price points.

For metro/urban look: Clean, sleek designs are a hot look in the midst of a category traditionally dominated by Victorian reproductions. For retailers whose customers are looking for contemporary metro styles, Comfort Designs is a top pick. Specializing in contemporary home furnishings, Comfort Designs offers a cutting edge, sophisticated metro look. Their Mercer bed is a top seller.

Largo International is also going after the contemporary metal bed market with three new introductions in shiny chrome and nickel finishes, giving these frames a decidedly contemporary, urban appeal at lower price points.

For a classic little girl bedroom: “There will always be a place for a metal bed in a little girl’s bedroom,” said John Albanese, Marketing Vice President of La-Z-Boy’s youth division, Lea Industries. Their “Summerset” collection is a top choice for the traditional storybook white metal bed of every girl’s dreams and offers a coordinating desk, dresser, hutch, trundle, mirror and vanity.

Metal Bed Style Update

Metal beds are a hot category in today’s bedroom furniture market. Introductions at the High Point market indicate just how hot this category is. Category leaders Wesley Allen and Hillsdale Furniture have added dozens of frames to their metal bed lines. Largo has committed itself anew to the category. This strong surge of new introductions points to two diverging style trends.

The first style trend reinforces and develops the traditional metal bed look: elaborate scrollwork and substantial castings, over-the-top footprints and multi-dimensional finishes. Appealing to typically older and sophisticated consumers, these styles help create a romantic bedroom hideaway. The beds are dressed with silks, velvets and layers upon layers of pillows, shams and throws. Manufacturers are increasing their offerings of canopy style metal beds to further define this style trend.

At the same time, another strong but opposing trend is toward contemporary and minimalist styles. This genre features cool, clean finishes like nickel, chrome and black. Rather than curved and fanciful, these metro-flavored beds are full of crisp lines and right angles. Their clean and simple lines are drawing young urban customers to the metal bed category. The bottom line of these trends is that the market for metal beds is growing deeper and broader. Once holding limited appeal only to hopeless romantics and ten-year-old girls, metal beds now draw a broad range of interest. Little girls can get their dream canopy bed, young urban couples can have a sleek iron bed, metal beds match up with existing furniture in secondary bedrooms and top-of-the-line heirloom beds create bedroom whimsy.

Metal Bed Price Points at a Glance

Here’s a brief rundown of what your customers will need to know about the value and quality of metal beds at various price points.

Best metal beds will showcase unique, exclusive and detailed designs. Castings are substantial and detailed and showcase elaborate hand-formed and individually fitted scrollwork. Joinery is seamless. The best metal beds are crafted from generous, thick tubes of steel and do not budge when subjected to the "shake test." These beds are usually custom made, are expected to last at least a generation and are available at retail price points over $1,000.

Better metal beds are available in stylish, up-to-date designs. Castings are fewer, somewhat smaller and formed from aluminum. The joinery workmanship is noticeable when closely examined. The profile of better beds is not as large as top-of-the-line beds, and the tubes of steel that make up the bed are thinner in diameter and produce a more distinct "ping" when flicked. These beds are expected to last one’s lifetime and are available at retail price points between $400-$1,000.

Good metal beds are mass-produced in styles that are well represented in the marketplace. Their designs are simple and have fewer and smaller castings that are made of zinc rather than aluminum. The joinery is obvious, small gauge steel tubing is used, and they do not perform as well on the "ping test" or the "shake test." The overall dimensions of these beds are smaller. Consumers expect to eventually update these beds and find them available at retail price points under $400.

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