The customer looking for bedroom sets at Gavigan’s Furniture didn’t believe that a mattress could lessen her apnea-induced night terrors, but Ryan Gavigan pointed her toward some great deals. She took her time deciding, even coming back in her pajamas for a test lie-down.
A week after delivery of her new mattress, she visited the store in tears.
“I slept,” she told Gavigan. “I can’t remember the last time I had a full night’s sleep.”
That moment told Gavigan, fresh out of college, that the family business was the right place to be. “I started getting teary-eyed, too, because I felt I made a difference in someone’s life, all from a simple mattress,” he says. “That story will stay with me throughout my entire career, and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking to help people but not letting them spend an arm and a leg.”
Today, Maryland’s largest family-owned furniture store continues to follow a philosophy of building mattress sales at the spot where value meets quality.
The legacy begins
You’ll find a Gavigan’s Furniture in some of Maryland’s most charming towns ringing Baltimore. The business began in the late 1970s. Ryan’s grandfather, Bob Gavigan, was selling produce from a truck beside the road, and one day, a man offered him $50 to remove furniture from his house.
“That was more money than if he had sold his whole fruit cart,” Ryan says. “He removed the furniture from the guy’s house, and he never looked back to produce.”
Bob connected with a North Carolina furniture supplier. Every week, he would drive to North Carolina and return to Maryland with a truckload of furniture that he sold, as always, by the side of the road.
“He started out with recliners, and recliners morphed into sofas and loveseats and all kinds of stuff,” Ryan says. “That’s how we got our start.”
Ryan’s dad, Rob Gavigan, worked with Bob along the roadside. Even when the first brick-and-mortar store opened—in 1980—the business maintained roadside sales for a time because that was how people knew them.
That first store was a tiny establishment “in the middle of nowhere,” says Ryan, recalling family lore. “You had to go down a back alley, but all the locals knew of it. It was right next to a popular sub shop.”
Mattresses arrived with a later store, when Bob and his brothers realized they offered small-footprint, high-margin sales. As extended family joined the enterprise and Rob rose to leadership, more stores were added.
Today, Gavigan’s Furniture stores are found in Bel Air, Catonsville, Frederick, Glen Burnie, Towson, and Westminster, Maryland, with offices and a warehouse in Linthicum. Bob serves as president. Vice President Rob runs day-to-day operations, and Ryan is in management and marketing.
Ryan started in the business at age 12, working in every aspect of it, just like his father had. After he earned his college degree in business administration and sales, he headed straight back to the family business.
“Most kids want to be cowboys, police officers, firemen, astronauts,” he says. “Nope. I wanted to be a furniture salesman. Even astronauts need furniture.”
A value proposition
Walk into a Gavigan’s, and you’ll find value. It’s there, first, in the 100 sofas just inside the door. Then, it’s embedded in mattress showrooms that are softly lit, “like a steakhouse at night,” to set a mood, says Ryan.
“We give you the mom-and-pop feel with the availability of a big corporate chain,” he says. “We have the buying power of the big stores, but everybody in our stores is from the towns that are around them.”
Customers in the region don’t have to hop around among Gavigan’s branches to find what they want. With the exception of extra frames to round out the selection at the larger stores, such as the 60,000-square-foot former Wolf’s Furniture store in Frederick, buyers will find consistent products across all showrooms.
“Every single store, you can find almost the same items,” Ryan says.
Mattresses total about 20 SKUs, nearly all private-labeled through Serta, Resident, Jubilee, and Eclipse, he says.
The store’s private-label program starts with value, not price point. For instance, Gavigan’s collaborated with Serta to develop a double-sided mattress—one of many in the lineup.
“What do we want to show the consumer to show that we’re different?” Ryan asks. “The biggest one is double-sided mattresses. Eighty percent of our line is double-sided. If you look at the cost, it doesn’t add that much to be able to get double the value out of a mattress. Something as simple as that is the difference between us and them.”
Gavigan’s also promises a common-sense buying experience. Working with Eclipse, Rob Gavigan created the Moonlight sales concept of numbering mattresses from 1 to 5 for ultra plush, plush, medium, firm, and ultra firm. Retail sales associates start customers at 3 and work up or down. When RSAs find a match, they guide customers to a handful of corresponding choices in that category.
“It’s the easiest program you can instill in someone to help them remember,” Ryan says. “And then on top of that, it’s price point. If you can find someone in that $999 price point, it’s almost a shoo-in to roll over.”
Pricing for local needs
The value mindset keeps mattresses within the highly prescriptive, locally relevant price range of $999 to $1,999.
“We hammer that price point hard,” Ryan says.
It’s not the highest of highs or lowest of lows, but it’s suited to a region where government employment creates stable income—until households are wracked by uncertainty over a shutdown, political standoff, or cutbacks.
Those customers are “the first ones to pull all their money back,” Ryan explains. “Our target demographic is the upper end of low and the lower end of high. That’s our customer, and there’s nobody in our marketplace that offers that to anybody. We’ve established our niche. If you want good stuff that’s going to last a significant period of time for a great value, that’s us.”
When those customers have the $999 or $1,499 to buy a mattress, they will shop around to get the best value, and Gavigan’s is ready for them.
“Your consumer today is smarter,” Ryan asserts. “They don’t hesitate to open their phones and spot check. They’re also wiser. They’re more informed, so the sales process has to change.”
While sales messaging is pivoting to the significant health benefits of good sleep, “people buy from people,” he says. “The RSA will be the game-changer.” Each location has four or five salespeople, none of them dedicated solely to sleep but all of them “well-rounded enough to be that jack of all trades. They all know our lineup through and through. I’m blessed with people who have been here at least five to 10 years.”
Gavigan’s belief in value boils down to matching each customer with a good mattress that meets their unique sleep and spending needs and to ensuring the customer leaves feeling comfortable with their decisions.
“We don’t do any of the hoopla,” Ryan says. “We try to keep it simple. It’s really, really easy to get overwhelmed with options. We try to keep it easy.”
Gavigan’s mattress buyers fall into two groups—those looking specifically for a mattress and those surprised to learn that they can one-stop shop for a mattress, a sofa, or a bedroom set.
Many recent customers have had their mattresses for 15 years, thinking that it’s fine, “but really, it’s harming them,” Ryan says. “We don’t think you have to spend a lot to get a good night’s sleep. That’s at the heart of what we do.”
Looking ahead
Aiming to strengthen its brand recognition, Gavigan’s is considering adding another mattress line. The search is focusing on the company’s metrics of quality and value: easy to sleep on and easy to buy.
Marketing and promotions remain largely traditional, depending on each store’s surrounding community. Media include flyers and billboards, both augmented by streaming TV and Google ads.
“We typically go with what our consumer knows, and a lot of government people are techno-savvy, so we do a lot of streaming services,” Ryan says.
Gavigan’s is rebuilding its website to pivot to hybrid e-commerce, for a “see it online, buy it in the store” and vice versa approach. As for full online retail, Ryan is researching the business case, including how to handle open stock, although dedicated clearance outlets—one in Frederick and one coming to Bel Air—will help move that plan forward.
Ryan credits his father’s leadership and grandfather’s mentorship with growing the Gavigan’s presence and standing in the community. “We’re blessed. We have great people helping us in our stores and great clientele. We’re a local, community-based, homegrown operation. We couldn’t have done it without them.”
Double Dose: The Case for Double-Sided Mattresses
Consumers like flippable mattresses, says Ryan Gavigan. That’s why 80% of Gavigan’s mattresses are double-sided. He explains why double-sided mattresses deserve their fair share of showroom space:
- More for the money: Flippable mattresses add value without drastically raising the retail price.
- Going green: Today’s culture is about disposability, but for generations, consumers took flippability for granted. Double-sided options last longer, reducing waste and saving money by stretching out the time between replacements.
- Sound sleep: Double-sided mattresses deliver the comfort and firmness choices that consumers demand. Most of Gavigan’s mattresses are hybrids, with top sellers coming from its private-label line with Serta. Gavigan’s shows firm, plush, and a Eurotop that combines the two. The most popular sizes are adult queen and king.
- A standout product: When the competition is cutting back on double-sided mattresses, buyers go where they’ll find what they’re looking for.
- The right stuff: Making a private-label, double-sided mattress isn’t technically challenging. Find the right partner and use high-quality materials. At Gavigan’s, that means high-density foams, pocket coil systems, foam-encased edges, and cooling gel foams with breathable ticking.
- Satisfied customers: Many of Gavigan’s buyers are pleasantly surprised to learn that double-sided mattresses are still available. They appreciate the longevity and value, and they come back to say they love the comfort.
