Summer Market 2013 Recap
Summer 2013 Las Vegas World Market was the worst attended market ever! Sitting in the Spring Air space (B-111) on Monday, the first day of Market Week, I was very tempted to pull out some cards and poker chips to pass that time as very few buyers came to space all day. The lack of attendance was not for lack of trying. To great fanfare and industry notice Spring Air re-introduced the Sleep Sense line with a complete face lift and new formulations.
"The company's new Sleep Sense hybrid collection, set to retail from $799 to $1,899, includes five models with encased-coil cores that feature the company's proprietary multi-level unit design. The beds use varying combinations of latex, gel memory foams and poly foams in the recessed zones of the proprietary coil cores. Each Sleep Sense model also uses a gel memory foam layer near the surface of the bed for a cooler sleep.."
The Sleep Sense is considered a hybrid+ due to the unique coil units with pressure relieving valleys of foam. An amazing product with clear demonstrable pressure relieving properties. In spite of the low market attendance something very interesting started happening Tuesday, the Spring Air market space started buzzing with activity.
The remainder of the market we had a steady stream of new and old customers visiting the space who were actually looking for changes and additions to their retail floor. What make this so exciting that for the last few markets most of our retail customers have been singing the same song, "Sales are down, I'm not looking for any new products" or "I need a very cheap model. That is all that is selling." This market customers were showing optimism from strong summer sales. Moreover, customers were showing great interest in the new Sleep Sense line to fill wholes in the sub-premium price points, which are show the tender shoots of growth as US economy begins to stabilize.
While the market may have stared slowly the overall results are very encouraging. We left the market with placements of the Sleep Sense line to begin shipping in mid September, new accounts in Southern California and an energized sales team with new a unique products to take to our customers.
As a final note just last week Cannon Sleep Products hosted a team from Spring Air corporate to work on the Winter Season 2014 Market product launch. We are very excited about the Four new models that are in development. More information on the new models will be available to our customers this Fall.