Kingsdown opens first retail unit
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, August 18, 2003
Durham, N.C. — Top 10 bedding producer Kingsdown has opened its first company-owned store at a new, upscale mall here.
The Sleep to Live store in The Streets at Southpoint is the prototype of a retail concept developed by Kingsdown and ready to be expanded to malls and other retailing venues nationwide.
Many of the new stores will be Sleep to Live franchises operated by Kingsdown dealers. Kingsdown will open company-owned stores in areas not currently served by existing dealers.
Kingsdown Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric Hinshaw predicted that "the vast majority, in the near future, will be opened by our existing customers."
The standard store layout will encompass 1,500 square feet and feature nine beds, retailing from about $1,500 to $5,000 in queen.
A focal point of the new store is an eight-foot video screen near the entrance that displays video clips and information about the importance of a healthy night's sleep. The presentations also explain the benefits of Kingsdown's computerized DormoDiagnostics body-profiling system, featured prominently in the store.
The store will enable Kingsdown to refine sales techniques that will help all Kingsdown dealers, Hinshaw said.
"In addition to reaching out to a new group of consumers," he said, "Sleep to Live stores will develop new sales approaches that will benefit retailers who sell Kingsdown's DormoDiagnostics products worldwide."
Hinshaw said the Durham store is an extension of what Kingsdown has learned from the first store, a Boyles Sleep to Live Store operated by that retailer in Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Kingsdown retailers are enthusiastic about the retail concept, said Tom McLean, senior vice president. "The response has been a lot stronger than we expected," he said.
Pat Flippin, Kingsdown's president and chief operating officer, said the stores are expanding awareness of the DormoDiagnostics system.
"Sleep to Live stores are helping raise awareness of the benefits of DormoDiagnostics among mall shoppers who might not have been exposed to the process or to Kingsdown," Flippin said. "Some people walk in actually looking for bedding. Others just wander in because they're intrigued with the concept. Regardless, we're finding that those who are tested and try out the bedding often buy on the spot or come back within a few days to make a purchase."
