“Inside the Mind of Today’s Mattress Shopper” – Talking Sustainability

Barrie Brown of Sleep Luxury Beds participated on the retailer panel at the second-annual ISPA Sustainability Conference in September. Here, he shares his thoughts on consumer attitudes toward sustainability, as well as his impressions of the latest Better Sleep Council research on sustainability and the mattress-buying experience.

Transcript

Waynette Goodson
It’s Waynette Goodson. And welcome to “Inside the Mind of Today’s Mattress Shopper.” And we have with us Barrie Brown. Now you are with Seep Luxury Beds, Barrie, and you recently participated on a panel at our sustainability conference. Why don’t we start by telling our audience a little about your business and what role sustainability plays for you?

Barrie Brown
Sure. So Sleep, Luxury Beds, we’re focused on all-natural products chemical free, hand made, higher end of the market. So everything we offer, from pillows to mattresses to bedroom furniture, is all from companies focused on sustainability in natural products.

Waynette Goodson
Okay. All right. Good, good.

Barrie Brown
That’s what we’re known for.

Waynette Goodson
All right. Well, so tell us, you know, since you participated on our panel and thank you very much. The panel was titled How to Communicate Your Sustainability Story to Retailers and Mattress Shoppers. So, from all of the great information you provided, what’s your number one key takeaway that you hope folks at the conference walked away with?

Barrie Brown
So there was a lot of information and really good information. But I think the number one takeaway that I was hoping to communicate in my part of the panel was that consumers are far ahead of us as an industry, and we’ve got to catch up, and we’ve got to up our game to know where the consumer’s going to.

Barrie Brown
Otherwise, we’re going to get left behind. It’s the interest in sustainable products and the focus on it. And some people take it too far, but they’re focused on sustainability now. And we have to up our game and be part of the conversation of the future.

Waynette Goodson
Right. Recently, Barrie, you got a sneak peek at our latest BSC sustainability research. So now, of all the key findings that came out of that research, what impresses you the most about the newest research?

Barrie Brown
Well, there’s a lot of data in the research, and it was very comprehensive and took different viewpoints—the viewpoint of manufacturers and retailers and the viewpoint of consumers. And there was a much larger sampling of consumers than manufacturers and retailers. So it was that the consumer insights were much more interesting to me than the industry insights.

But what I took away from it is sustainability is incredibly important to the consumer. They want to know more about it. They know more about it. They want to talk about it. But at the end of the day, they’re really confused. And I think that’s why I say we have to up our game. We have to help demystify the whole process for the consumer so that once we make it simpler, more relatable and understandable, they’ll buy more.

And there is also they’re all willing to pay a premium for a sustainable product. So I think it’s good for the industry from an average ticket size, but we’ve got to be able to talk the talk.

Waynette Goodson
Right. Barrie, thank you. And all of you, thank you for tuning in. And as always, have a great night’s sleep.