This is the Beautyrest Recharge Station at the new Sit 'n Sleep Store in Chino Hills, Calif.CHINO HILLS, Calif. - Mattress powerhouse Sit 'n Sleep recently opened its 29th store here and is gunning for more growth in the sprawling Southern California market.
Up next: The retailer expands out of its Los Angeles home base to the Santa Barbara area, a new market for the growth-minded company headed by bedding veterans Larry Miller, CEO, and Nelson Bercier, president.
"Sit 'n Sleep is going to aggressively expand in the So Cal marketplace, hitting areas that are currently being under serviced by the mattress industry," Miller told Furniture/Today. "Our goal is to ensure that customers all over So Cal (Orange County, Los Angeles County and Ventura County) have the best selection of mattresses at the most competitive prices."
The retailer is known for its strong retail sales associates, who are experts at selling better sleep, and knows that good employees will continue to be a key to its growth.Sit 'n Sleep carries Serta's iComfort line of gel memory foam beds.
"Sit 'n Sleep will continue the positive momentum by continuing to hire strong employees across the board, from management, retail, warehouse and delivery," Miller said. "We ensure that all of our employees have the best training and are the best at what they do. They are the face of the company. If they are working at top form the customer feels a direct impact."
Another key to the company's growth is its savvy advertising mix, which features an aggressive TV presence and also includes radio and online messages.
The new 10,000-square-foot Chino Hills store continues the company's expansion in the vast Los Angeles market, which is ringed with Sit 'n Sleep stores that are among the highest producing mattress stores in the country.
The new store features the "Sleep Match" technology that is tied to the Dr. Breus beddinTempur-Pedic is one of the key bedding lines carried by Sit 'n Sleep.g line. Breus, known as The Sleep Doctor, has introduced a new specialty sleep line produced by Comfort Solutions.
The Sleep Match technology ensures that customers get fitted for a mattress that meets their individual needs. Every person has a different mattress need and this technology helps ensure a good customer-mattress fit, Miller said.
He and his team have added stores with a deliberate, analytical approach to the task.
"Through intensive ZIP code analysis, demographic and other types of detailed analysis, Sit 'n Sleep can pinpoint locations where we can open new successful storefronts," Miller said. "Los Angeles is a very competitive market but with analysis, an excellent team, quality product and competitive pricing we are able to grow and thrive."
And that has been no simple feat, given the extent to which the mattress industry was hurt by the recent recession.Sleep Doctor Michael Breus is featured in this display.
"Sit 'n Sleep is very proud that the company has remained strong in profitability and market share in the worst recession in retail history," Miller said. "Not only did Sit 'n Sleep survive the recession but it thrived. While other companies were shutting down stores, Sit 'n Sleep opened new locations. In 2006, the economic forecasts were beginning to look grim, but Sit 'n Sleep took aggressive, proactive steps to ensure that the company would continue to grow during the tough economic downturn."
The results have been impressive.
"Sit 'n Sleep is performing better than our competition," Miller said. "As our market share continues to grow steadily, we have opened new locations to meet consumer demand. We have also ensured that our selection and pricing are the best in Southern California. Customers in Los Angeles have a choice on where they shop. Our goal is to make the choice easy with our selection, prices and experienced sales team."A panoramic view shows many of the mattresses offered by Sit 'n Sleep.
The selection at Sit 'n Sleep is among the broadest in the industry, with more than 100 beds on the sales floors. Key vendors include Sealy, Simmons, Serta, Kluft, Tempur- Pedic, Sherwood, Octaspring, Dr. Breus and Stearns & Foster.
Later this year the retailer will push the envelope on its comfort zone when it enters the Santa Barbara market, about 95 miles north of Los Angeles on the Pacific coast.
"Santa Barbara is an opportunity to expand into a market that isn't dominated by Los Angeles media and is an opportunity to test our strength outside the security of LA's gigantic media umbrella," Miller said. "Santa Barbara has long been an area we wanted to approach and we are confident we can meet consumer demand with our selection and pricing."
