Today's Bedroom One gets kids

Fishers, Ind. — Jeff Hanna is a man who can recognize trends, and more importantly, react to them. He's taken Today's Bedroom One from a waterbed specialist to a bedroom furniture specialist, and most recently, has doubled or tripled his youth offerings to create a series of Today's Kids departments in his 10-store Indianapolis-area chain. With new merchandising with a focus on accessories and textiles, the company enjoyed a 30% increase in its youth department last year.

Today's Bedroom One first started as The Bedroom 26 years ago, and grew to an eight-store chain specializing in flotation sleep. But by the early '90s, with the specialty flotation sleep business in decline, Hanna, who was then acting as vice president of sales for the company, began a move toward more traditional mattress lines such as Simmons and Spring Air.

When he saw a positive reaction, he added furniture to the mix, and in 1997, he and Paul Liberatore, who had been on the operations side of the business, bought the company. Soon after, the team opened the Mattress Gallery concept to focus on bedding, while Today's Bedroom One stayed focused on furniture.

In 2002, Hanna and Liberatore reacted to the growth in demand for youth furniture, expanding the square footage offerings in several of their locations for juvenile and teen concepts. The youth departments now operate as a store-within-a-store concept and are advertised under the name Today's Kids, geared toward children from age 4 to 14.

With twin beds from companies like Lea, Powell, Trendwood, Innovations, Kathy Ireland by Standard and Lexington Kids priced mostly between $199 and $499, Hanna said his best-selling pieces fall in the $349 to $399 range in twin. But, he adds, full-sized beds are gaining in popularity, with "a tremendous amount of requests from parents for full-size beds."

Because of that, Hanna said in his bigger stores he tries to show more options in full or queen sizes, which also do double-duty by appealing to the older demographic of teens, an area that he'd like to expand.

Bunks range in price from $599 to $899, and Hanna said all-in-one lofts with built-in chests and trundles have been a big hit recently for parents who want to maximize space in smaller bedrooms. "Flexibility is a home run," he explained.

Hanna stocks everything he shows in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse in Indianapolis, making the turnaround for delivery very quick — usually between 24 and 48 hours. The product mix is currently around 40% imports, a number that could grow to 60%, though Hanna admits that imports can be more of a challenge to keep in stock.

"We try to strike a balance," he said. "I would prefer not to be a company that is 100% imports."

Hanna shops only at High Point for furniture, though he said the new Las Vegas furniture market may change that. But he also said he sees his sales reps "constantly."

For now, Hanna said he sees a lot of consumers buying for the 4- to 6-year-old, and then again for the 8- to 9-year-old as they start to outgrow their furniture.

"Usually what you have with youth movement is siblings," Hanna said. If an older sibling is getting new furniture and you can keep the family coming back, they may buy something for the younger sibling as well, he explained. "We're trying to give ourselves the best chance to sell to all the kids in the household."

Another key piece in the revamping of the youth departments was an enhanced focus on accessories and textiles, with merchandise coordinator Michele Liberatore playing a key role in the departments' new look. She added a lot of textiles for top-of-bed appeal as well as to get some resale, Hanna said, so the departments are a lot more dressed up than they used to be.

"We definitely have seen an increase in accessories and linen sales in the past two years," Liberatore said. "Even in the past year, we've been doing a lot more."

One key to that is to supply consumers with coordinating bedding and accessories for a complete look. The addition of KidsLine, which offers coordinating room décor along with its bedding, has been a real boost to sales, Liberatore said.

Hanna said they tried to keep the store wide open, with lots of bright-colored walls. Themes like sports, bugs and pastels have been selling well.

Still, Hanna said he feels like he faces strong competition in the textile area from mass merchants because of the price points they're able to offer. "It's going to be an uphill battle," he said. On the other hand, he said specialty pieces like child-size table-and-chair sets are unique items that can't be found other places and have been good sellers.

These pieces are also easy add-on items, and Hanna said he trains his associates to build a ticket by offering consumers items that will complete the look and save them time and money.

Today's Bedroom One's more than 60 sales associates work on commission, with between seven and nine people on staff at the larger stores and four or five at the smaller venues. The sales staff work across departments, with no specific youth specialists. The delivery crew are all employees as well, something that ensures a consistent level of service.

Sales associates are also asked to collect names, addresses and phone numbers of customers, something that's helped Hanna build a mailing list of potential and previous customers.

"I am a believer that if a consumer is generally interested in the product and allows the sales person to work with them, they'll be willing to share the information," Hanna said.

Once a month, those consumers get a direct mail piece that gives them an extra incentive to shop on a given day — a one-day special not advertised to the general public — and then the sales people call and follow up with them.

"As a result, those days are good sales days for us," Hanna said.

Other sales promotions include 0% financing, coupon events with a dollar amount or percentage amount off a purchase, and no sales tax days.

Hanna faces some stiff competition in the Indianapolis area, with a handful of specialty stores along with full-line furniture stores like Kittles, Rooms Express, Thomasville, Ethan Allen and Value City.

A serious advertising campaign helps keep Today's Bedroom One's name and message out there, and Today's Kids is advertised separately. Although the company uses radio, television and direct mail, the heaviest concentration is in print advertising, where Hanna takes out two full pages every Saturday in the Indianapolis Star, as well as additional ads in the Metro North section twice a week.

Debbie Currey, Today's Bedroom One's vice president of marketing, has also worked to develop a unique program called the Kids Club that speaks directly to children (see sidebar), a trend that perhaps we'll see more and more of as the youth market grows.

Fashion Bed Group's feminine Delaney bunk bed gets a celestial look when paired with linens and accessories by KidsLine and a rug by Fun Rugs.

Powell's Teen Trends, with bedding by P.J. Kids, is aimed at older kids.

Standard's City Park group and linens by Lawrence Home Fashions create a traditional boys' look.

Lea Inds.' Carolina Retreat bunk and linens by KidsLine brighten things up.