Gowsh Shan, National Sales Manager at global mattress protection specialist Protect-A-Bed, reflects on the recent NBF Bed Show, which saw the business expand on its Platinum Club membership.
The recent NBF Bed Show in Telford was a very positive event for Protect-A-Bed. The company displayed its various mattress protection products as well as details behind its extensive support and exclusive bespoke reward system. Running for consistently for several years now, the Platinum Club has delivered big results, with both existing and new partners benefiting from its focused approach. The Bed Show provided another opportunity for Protect-A-Bed to explain just why the Platinum Club is a must for retailers, with many signing up during the exhibition.
“The Platinum Club has been designed to build, recognise and reward success with unique promotional and discount opportunities, sponsored incentives, tailored POS solutions as well as membership rewards,” said Gowsh.
“The Platinum Club has been extremely successful since its creation. We continuously build frameworks that are simple for retailers to implement in order to achieve extremely high sales within the category. We create energy and excitement in a category often overlooked and our ability to turn this into sales growth is phenomenal.”
The success of their Platinum Club rewards programme has continued to be very positive, as Gowsh added: “The Bed Show was a huge success for us where we opened multiple new accounts, including a growing number of European attendees. Our Platinum Club has grown in membership significantly, which we’re delighted with. Now we must focus on our implementing this and reinforcing our message.
“We have the ability to upskill your team and increase your sales revenue by maximising every sales opportunity, which has been well documented. We manage every step of the process for you and build a reward scheme through The Protect-A-Bed Platinum Club.”
The Bed Show proved to be another strong platform for the business, adding to its positive year so far, with Protect-A-Bed, which is carried in nearly 15,000 stores worldwide and trusted by millions of people to provide a clean, safe and comfortable sleep environment, continuously seeing success driven by their customer focus approach.
“With the cost-of-living crisis and the recent obstacle of challenges that impact footfall and spend, consumers are being ever-savvier on their shopping habits. This means the focus has never been more important on each customer who walks through the shop door to maximise every sale opportunity and to also increase the average order value,” Gowsh said.
To do this, Protect-A-Bed, which has been established for over 40 years and operates across 45 countries, are constantly looking to help drive sales for all of its retail partners through its product innovations and expertise in the mattress protection space.
“Product innovation is one small element of how we unlock greater sales for our partners,” Gowsh said. “The Therapeutics range, featuring Copper, Graphene and Charcoal mattress protectors have already been a great success and were, once again, very positive during the Bed Show. All of our mattress protectors use a Miracle Membrane, which is waterproof yet breathable and allows body heat to easily pass through, whilst preventing any sweat to enter the mattress. The protectors are machine washable, meaning you can keep your sleep zone healthy and hygienic.
“Supporting our innovative mattress protectors is our specialist sales training, which is vital to unlock the sales potential. Our Protect-A-Bed team are incredibly adaptive to support this in any retail environment, driving attachment rates to over 70%.
“Our specialty is driving in-store performance, so linked mattress and mattress protector sales are extremely high. The customer benefits from a healthy and hygienic sleep zone while the store benefits from increased sales revenue. Every customer who walks through the door, if buying a mattress, needs to buy a mattress protector. It’s in their interest to do so for many reasons.”
Looking ahead, Protect-A-Bed will continue to build its membership through the Platinum Club, offer support to customers and work on new product developments, with the latter set for a January Furniture Show unveiling. “Our key message to customers is that there are some significant differences between Protect-A-Bed and other inferior mattress protectors,” Gowsh said. “For example, every Protect-A-Bed protector includes a 10-15 year product guarantee and when bought with a mattress, a 10-15 year anti-stain guarantee.
“Protect-A-Bed will have the mattress professionally cleaned to the customer’s satisfaction or buy the customer a new one if it fails and the mattress was bought with the protector. This promise is significantly powerful and is at the core of our philosophy. As we approach the end of the year, we’re excited to announce that we will be launching new ranges of pillow protectors at JFS 2024. We look forward to another year of growth and success.”
