Retail is a tough business, talk to any salesman and they'll tell you that it's not easy. Each sale is a small victory that allows them to live and eat. And every time they take the time to educate a prospective customer on their products, it's a small investment in hopes of garnering a sale, an investment of time and energy and hope. It's not an easy business, and in a lot of industries, if you don't sell, you don't eat. Temptations abound, as you can imagine, in order to garner that sale, temptations to shade the truth, to be able to create an experience for those that are prospective buyers, that will motivate them to reach for their wallets to make that purchase. It's a tough business for those that own the business as well, to keep overhead low, to keep pricing competitive and relevant, to be able to always keep their stores stocked with the latest and greatest merchandise, to be able to somehow find room in all the costs that owning your own business entails, for a little bit of profit. Just so you can live. It's an even tougher job than that of those on the sales floor. So, for those that have been able to survive in retail, in any type of retail industry, it is a feat, a genuine feat that should be commended, lauded, and even learned from. Neil Leeds has done this with his chain of mattress stores in southern California, Leeds Mattresses, and it hasn't been easy. With all the economic downturns in the last 2 decades, it definitely hasn't been easy, but he somehow has still eked out an existence, and continues to do so, opening a new location in Torrance. He has also delved in the manufacturing end of mattress retail, cutting the cost of the mattress even further, creating a more vertical architecture within his sales organization. Little bit more for him, little bit more for you, the prospective customer. It's this kind of dedication to the product and industry that has allowed him to somehow survive despite the American recession as of late. Leeds Mattress, it's worth looking into. Chances are that if you're in the market looking for a new mattress, you'll find something that'll be just right for you, at a price that's ridiculously low. Your competitors will be offering virtually the same brand name stock,
with prices that will be just as similar; you will be starting deep in
the red and getting out will be tough because each sale will most likely
be a hard-fought battle, and even when those battles are won, there’ll
only be a small profit for each. This industry is far from glamorous,
is tough to be in, and tougher to survive in. If you’re looking for a mattress store Torrance – Los Angeles, you might want to consider Leeds on Crenshaw Blvd. Before just writing Leeds off as another mattress retailer, there might be a few things that you’ll want to consider. There is a steep challenge that is posed to those within the mattress industry. Most, if not all, of the major mattress brands are well-known because they’ve been around for a long time, so the pricing offered to distributors won’t change much; any pricing edge that can be afforded to a retail outlet will be slight at best. This is also an industry where overhead costs are not small. In order to have a quality showroom and sales location, you need a lot of space: mattresses aren’t small, and they are bulky. This means you’ll have to rent out a warehouse space, which doesn’t come cheap, and business spaces that big will usually have to be leased or rented for a few years minimum, especially for mattress store Los Angeles – Torrance. They know that customers will be finicky and will be leering at mattress
salesman like they were on a used car lot, so Leeds will personally
make the extra effort to accommodate as much as possible. Leeds also
knows that marketing also plays a key role. Leeds made it a point to
establish his personal company brand and presence across the southern
California landscape by putting up a business wherever he thought it was
a good buy. Some would argue this is oversaturation when one location
is less than half an hour from another, but Starbucks uses the same
tactic and we don’t see them folding anytime
soon. In fact, Leeds used
this this strategy, of using local geographic saturation as a marketing
tool, a long time before Starbucks came on the scene. Each location
serves more than just a sales location, it’s a marketing location. Even
if the location doesn’t do phenomenal in sales, their mere presence
ends up being great marketing for all the locations, and therefore
carries its own weight in that regard. And this is just to set up shop, this does not guarantee sales. And when you take into account the cost of inventory, storage and showroom space, employing a competent sales force, insurance, and other misc. costs that are never foreseeable, the upfront overhead that is needed just to be able to open your doors is extremely high. With competition that is looking to undercut your prices, profit margins are slim and get even slimmer when you factor in customers that won’t buy without a haggle. Make no mistake, this is a tough industry in which to be able to eke out a profit, let alone a living. You would need a virtual monopoly just to be able to insure your own survival. With all this in mind, it is no surprise that to have survived in this industry for well over 20 years, you have to have a truly disciplined business sense and a tenacious determination that carry you through when the future holds no promise. So how has Leeds Mattress survived through all of this? Helmed by Neil Leeds, the business savvy is definitely part of the reason for his survival. Shrewd, yet well-calculated, business strategies have also played a role. A few of these strategies include better service, plain and simple. Leeds knows that because the product, the brand, and the pricing will be the same or very similar, they need to be able to differentiate themselves from their competition in a very tangible and memorable way.
