Manchester Bed Shops Review
Reddish Beds, Robin Hood Beds, Mr Bedds and Time for Bed. What do they all have in common? All are bed shops in Manchester? Yes. I visited them? Yes. I’d buy a bed from them? No way. I have my own bed shop remember.
It’s tough when a bed magnate like myself feels uncomfortable spying on the local bed shop competition. Keep getting thrown out you see – false big nose and ears and they still recognise me. So there I am travelling 200 miles to Manchester and Stockport to see what my competition is up to. Dedicated and daft.
First the number of bed shops in Manchester is immense. There has to be 3 times as many bed stores as you would find in Glasgow. They have Bensons and Sleepmasters and Dreams too. Dreary as the corporate boys are I won’t review them. I was impressed by the Bensons in Stockport however. A customer was shown 4 mattresses, each mattress costing £280. Such an efficient way to reduce the number of price tickets you have. And she bought one. A mattress that is, not a price ticket (there was none).
First I should point out that every independent bed shop I visited varied from eccentric to totally loony. Mr Bedds shop sign was Mr edds. Why would you have two names, like the man with two brains? Robin Hood Beds was a terraced house. The bedroom sets were fantastically realistic. You turned on the bedroom light (40 watts for economy) to see the displays. They did have some really good kit and really good prices.
Time for Bed was the best. They had our Prado bed at £99.99 and a really cheap 2 drawer double divan at £149.99. I arrived on the Saturday at 4.55pm to be told that they were closed. That busy they could close early on a Saturday. I quickly wrote down some prices from their Willis Gambier ranges which were brilliant. And at the NEC furniture show Mr Willis said no I can’t have these prices. Time for Bed has the sole distribution rights for the whole of the UK it seems. Gotta have a word with old man Gambier. I could double his turnover overnight.
Anyway I’m sounding sour again. I had a great time, met some fantastic people and generated some great ideas. So watch this space.
Related posts:
- Cheap beds for sale in London – cheaper in Leeds, Manchester or Edinburgh
- Dreams Beds in Edinburgh – Other Bed Shops?
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:54 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Glad you came to see us and liked the quirky way we display some of our beds. Were considering upgrading the lights to 60watts!!! I’m sure you agree it’s nice to have the room settings as customers would actually have them in their home.
We do have another two sections with the slightly more boring commercial layout allowing us to display a nice range covering everybodies budget.
Hope that if your shopping brings you our way again we could have a chat about the business, and perhaps ways we could both improve.
All the best
Riley
March 12th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Had to re read my blog to see how horrible I had been about Robin Hood Beds. I was actually really impressed but you have to admit there aren’t many furniture stores that are based on a terraced house.
I have a great friend who I visit in Hale and if I get a chance I’ll definitely pop in and say hello. Hope trade is holding up and with luck the snow is gone for another decade. You were really badly hit with snow when I visited. Scotland was totally clear at the time….