The retail industry may continue to struggle in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, however it is full steam ahead at Bedshed, says CEO Gavin Culmsee. 

Culmsee is in high spirits, and he says this is not the first time the 30 year old company has “seen a bit of a tough market.”

Rather than worry about matters that can’t be controlled, the Bedshed team has adopted a more positive approach.

“Our focus has been to not get bogged down in the doom and gloom. The market is actually not that bad regardless of what you read or what we see, and people are still buying beds so let’s get on with business,” says Culmsee.

Bedshed is not only continuing to operate as usual, it has introduced a number of new initiatives in a bid to drive sales further.

“Our point of view it to keep moving towards where we want to see Bedshed in the future rather than battening down the hatches.

“We have certainly continued with our marketing campaigns and probably got a bit more aggressive in terms of marketing. We are also rolling out a new store fit-out and we have internet touch screen kiosks in some of our stores now,” adds Culmsee.

The new store-fit out reflects Bedshed’s firm focus on the future, along with its desire to project a more modern image.

“It is about future proofing the network, a new store fit out means the stores look modern and up to date now and into the future. We have changed our product range to be a bit more contemporary and we wanted our stores to reflect that look as well.”

One company-owned and one franchised store have been re-fitted internally, and Bedshed is now rolling the re-fits out across its entire franchise network.

Bedshed introduced its touch screen kiosks to selected stores in February, and customers seem to be gradually embracing them.

“We started out with one in 10 customers using the kiosks and that is growing every week, and the time they are spending on it is starting to grow too,” says Culmsee.

The kiosks are proving incredibly beneficial for franchisees as they provide in depth information about customer buying habits.

“We get exactly the same type of analytics on the touch screen kiosks as you have on a website, so we know what products customers are looking at and how long they are looking at them for.

“We also know if they are sending the information off to someone else so it is really quite useful in terms of product ranging as well.”

The kiosks also help franchisees and their staff close sales, as they allow customers to communicate information about the products they see to their partners in a simple and efficient manner.

“Previously one of our big objections in store was customers would say ‘oh I need to go and show my husband or wife what this product looks like.’ What the kiosks allow you to do is to send a brochure via text message or email.

“You can send a high resolution photo with dimensions and all the store’s contact details in a nicely branded brochure and it is instantly on someone’s desktop or smartphone, and they can look at it and go ‘yeah I love the colour, we can buy it now,’

“This allows franchisees a better conversion rate so they are selling to more customers that are coming through the door, which is absolutely ideal from a franchisee point of view,” explains Culmsee.

The kiosks cater to different customer preferences, and they make it much easier for them to locate the product that suits their requirements.

“You get some people who don’t want to speak to a salesperson immediately when they walk into a store. The touch screen kiosks allow them to go through four key questions and then it gives them a shortlist of three or four mattresses to go and try.”

Interestingly, Culmsee is finding that rather than curb their spending habits in a bid to save, customers are spending more on bedding products because they want them to stand the test of time.

“What we are seeing is our top end in mattresses has been very resilient and it is in fact growing now. I think people are more thoughtful about their purchases, they are doing more research about what they want to buy, but they are buying a product that they want to last.

“You spend one third of your life in bed so you want to wake up feeling refreshed and having made the right choice,” he adds.

Culmsee says the company’s Franchise Advisory Council (FAC), its franchisees and other stakeholders are heavily involved in envisioning and implementing new initiatives.

“In a franchise network you really don’t get any initiatives off the ground unless you have buy-in at every stage with your franchisees, because you are asking them to invest their money.

“If they don’t believe in it they will be reticent and not so interested, whereas if you involve them in the process they will be as excited about it as we are.”

Culmsee says the FAC played a key role in the new-store fit out. “From the point of selecting a designer to writing the brief we wanted the designer to work on, our FAC was involved in the entire process.”

If a recent survey if anything to go by, Bedshed franchisees are incredibly pleased with their businesses despite what many perceive to be uncertain economic conditions.

“We did a survey of our franchisees through the Franchise Relationships Institute last year and 84 percent of our franchisees were very satisfied with their financial return, which is far above what the franchise sector average is. Our guys are engaged and on board and that shows in the results they achieve as well.”