Each individual retail store faces unique and individual challenges that are unique to their industry. This is no different in the mattress industry, they have a very interesting set of challenges that unique to their specific industry, but similar challenges can be found in other retail industries. What if you were to take a mattress store Los Angeles, and then compare it to another mattress store Torrance, chances are they will be selling the same name brands. Prices may differ a bit between the two locations, but no doubt they would be comparable. Even if you were to have a mattress store sale Los Angeles, you can assume that there will be mattress sales in other cities, which would again basically make the pricing on all these mattresses identical. The actual difference in the various types of mattresses would be none, all the main brands in this industry have been around for many years and have been around long to have garnered a well-earned reputation and distinction. You know what you're getting with each specific brand of mattress. An LA mattress store would have basically the same selection as one found on the other side of the country in New York. If this is the case, then it naturally begs the question what would differentiate Los Angeles mattress stores from those in Ohio? The answer is extremely simple: it’s service. This is an industry, like many other industries that share the same product, where salesmanship is given an opportunity to prove their mettle. Anytime you're in a situation when you know you'll be hocking the exact same thing as the guy down the street, what you bring to the table in terms of rapport and personal service is what is going to make the sales experience unique and different from the next guy -- and what can mean the difference between a sale and a, "Oh, I was just looking."
Providing good service, however, is not easy in this business. Mattress are large and bulky, and a location needs to have warehouse proportions in order to be able to showcase all the relevant brands in all the necessary sizes. You also have to take into account that customers will want to lie down on a mattress for an indefinite amount of time, pepper your sales force with every question imaginable, and expect to feel a difference between mattresses within half an hour when it is estimated that it takes 60 days before your body adjusts to a new mattress. This makes the Leeds mattress chain unique: not only do they have all the major brands, but they are able to cater to customers who are on a tight budget by manufacturing their mattresses in-house. By taking over the manufacturing, distribution, and retailing aspects of a business, Leeds have truly become a vertical company that is able to negate all the mark-ups that occur at each juncture and to simply pass those savings onto the consumer. They are able to drop their pricing extremely low, which has allowed them to open up various locations in all most every major city in the state of California, all most to the point of saturation. Some stores have are within less than 20 minutes of the next store, and it became an almost running joke as to how saturated the southern California had become with Leeds locations. This was, however, a marketing strategy far ahead of its time since these locations were serving a dual purpose of both retail and advertising.
