By Alan Wolf, YSN
Retail sales of home products exploded in January, and mattresses were no exception.
According to a retail survey by investment bank Piper Sandler, as reported in Sleep Savvy magazine, last month’s bedding sales were the strongest in the poll’s five-year history.
Specifically, retail mattress sales in January were up by a mean of 22.3 percent in dollars and a mean of 17.1 percent in total unit dollars, the national survey showed. That compares to a 4.6 percent increase in dollar volume in November and a 15.2 percent spike in December, Piper Sandler said.
Last month’s strong mattress performance echoed that of furniture, appliance and consumer tech dealers, who defied retail’s traditional post-holiday dip and led all sales channels in month-over-month growth, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.
BrandSource dealers in particular enjoyed “exceptionally strong” appliance sales from the end of December through January, according to Chad Evans, AVB’s vice president of merchandising, whose data supported anecdotal accounts shared by members during this week’s round of region call-ins.
Looking ahead, mattress retailers anticipate overall first-quarter sales growth of 18 percent to 19 percent, compared to earlier expectations of 13 percent to 14 percent, the Piper Sandler survey showed. And most respondents (nearly two thirds) expect inventory/out-of-stock issues to be resolved by the first or second quarter.
The dealer forecasts prompted the investment bank to issue a rosy outlook for the bedding business. “While commodity pressure is likely to be a headwind for the industry, and supply chains are still seeing delays, we expect ongoing elevated demand to more than offset these factors,” the report concluded.
