2009 has started with Archers Uddingston, Ayr and Kilmarnock bed shops walking on water. All three stores are way above last years figures and showing no signs of weakness. They are selling across the board from single mattresses to master bedroom furniture sets. Uddingston in particular, with many bed retailers trading on the same Birkenshaw retail park, demonstrates the strength of our offers. Today, a lady looking for the cheapest double bed she could get, trawled round every store on the estate and came back to Archers. She bought the Sleepcomfort 4 drawer double divan and its not even on any special offer!

Of course last years top dogs – East Kilbride and Great Western Road, Glasgow – have had enormous figures to match and so the fact that they are struggling to hit target this January sale is not such a tragedy. They will have easier targets next year!

Now into the second week of the sale the results are coming through for the big bed sale successes. Top seller has to be the Mayfair 1200 pocket double mattress at £199. Close second is the Caesar memory foam double divan at £299.

We expected the Silentnight Contour Memory Double divan at £399 to be a run away winner but it hasn’t been. Its been good but not nearly as good as last year – we promoted it as a king size at £399 last year. Just shows you that what appears an absolute steal to us doesn’t necessarily appear so to the public!

And Sealy has had an amazing success with their Romance king size divan. Annoyingly it was on promotion in November and December so we didn’t feel we could advertise it as a sale line in January. No matter. It was a bargain in November and its still a bargain now! And the public think so too.

We have only 10 days to go now and then its back to more normal margins. Has the Big Bed Sale been a success? Definitely yes – but I’m holding my breath as to what happens when the sale ends.

We are on holiday Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And then again on New Years Day. We apologise for any inconvenience to our customers. Hope you all have a great time over the festive period and remember to get a great night’s sleep on an Archers bed. Hundreds of Beds, Hundreds of Bargains – at Archers Sleepcentre!

Archers Big Bed Sale is now on. See our current press advert for the best deals – a double leather bed at £149 for example. We have done bulk deals with Silentnight and Sealy and our warehouses are bulging at the seams. The Silentnight Keswick single divan bed at £199 is a particular bed bargain.

Alot of the offers are constrained by the bulk purchases. The good news is that although the current offers will only last for a week or two, we have organised a second tranche of products for mid January. Watch this space for some new deals then.

One of the first rules of graphic design is don’t let your local sign writer design your logos and signs. Let me add a second rule. Keep it simple!

We are now on phase 2 of our corporate makeover. Or is it phase 3?  Yes, I should have observed rules 1 and 2 some time ago. But we are getting there. Our Cumbernauld bed store signs are being replaced tomorrow and the Kilmarnock store the day after. With luck there will be no streaky flexi-faces and the vinyl colours will all match.

Only East Kilbride and Edinburgh to go. We have particularly fancy plans for them so I have kept them to last. Wait until you see the size of the Silentnight hippo we have planned for Seafield.

Julian Bowen offered us a preview of his latest beds and bedroom furniture prior to the annual Birmingham furniture show.

Each year Julian’s collection gets stronger and more diverse. He can only show a small proportion of what he offers at the NEC so every so often we are obliged to visit him. On this visit the most striking message was that white beds and bedroom furniture are becoming more and more popular. Huge successes are his Barcelona bed frame in white, and his Colorado bunk bed.

Over the last 5 years there has been a massive shift from pine beds to hardwoods, particularly oak beds and bedroom furniture. It suddenly struck home that maybe white beds and perhaps painted furniture are becoming an alternative. I remember well some 10 years ago saying to a colleague if I ever suggest buying painted furniture ever again, take me out and shoot me. In case they remember, I’m not going to suggest it OK?

For some time now, we have advertised our beds and mattresses in the Glasgow Herald Saturday magazine. We always get the outside back cover, its a glossy print and we treat the bed advert a bit like a leaflet drop. The quality of the copy is so much higher than normal newsprint…. I like it for sure.

We have now struck a deal to advertise 2 Fridays per month in the main Glasgow Herald paper. These will be small 15×3 teaser ads that will just show one bed product. It has been hard work to get sensible locations and sensible prices but at last the Herald has agreed a deal.

Note that we show our latest press advert in our current press advert web page.

The Julian Bowen Cordoba Sleigh Bed was our best selling sleigh bed and it was a huge frustration when we lost supply. At £199 this bed was superb value. We still have The Pacino sleigh bed, and though it is a much bigger and more detailed sleigh bed, it can’t beat the price of the Cordoba.

Anyhow the Cordoba sleigh is coming back, but not in a dark teak but in white. We have still to finalise the price – it will be more expensive partly because of the painted white finish but also because its another dollar imported product. One great advantage is that we will have matching furniture – The Cameo white bedroom furniture.

Robert Hunter and I are off to Mansfield to visit Julian Bowen this week. Julian has invited us to see all his new products prior to the Birmingham NEC January show. We will see the new Cordoba of course. And while we are there we will pin Julian up against a wall and try and empty his pockets. He doesn’t know that yet by the way.

At our last Kaymed factory visit we were introduced to a new range of gel beds. This gel has been trialed by other manufacturers, eg Silentnight, but no-one as yet has got it right. Kaymed, may have just cracked it.

Visco elastic memory foam is of course what Kaymed is known for. And the parallels are uncanny. Visco was a material that took along time to be set up in the correct way to make a successful sleeping surface. It took innovation and patience and alot of expertise. Those are qualities Kaymed have in abundance.

Gel looks to offer the same challenges and if anyone is up to the task its Kaymed. The material has all the right qualities and its exciting to lie on a bed that could be the next breakthrough in bed technology. Fingers crossed. Go for it Kaymed.

Our factory visit was fascinating by the way. These people are master craftsmen and technicians. The attention to detail to get the visco mix just write is incredible. Its an art as much as a science and I came away happy to recommend Kaymed visco over any other in the market place today.

VAT is being reduced from 17.5% to 15% as from Monday 1 December. So a bed that cost £100+VAT is now £115 rather than £117.50, ie a 2.13% reduction. Not 2.5%? Confused? That’s VAT for you.

Its been a hard year for price changes this year. Silentnight and Sealy have put up their prices twice. Some importers are putting on temporary “exchange rate” surcharges and some prices have just gone off the chart. Only 6 months ago we could sell a good chunky pine bunk bed for £99. Its now going up to £179. You have to rub your eyes.

The VAT reduction is of course great news. Petrol costs are coming down and the pound (sterling) has firmed up against the dollar, at least, over the last month. At $1.50 to the £1 its not good but at least its stable. One big increase for us this year has been the cost of steel and its effect on mattress spring costs. China got the blame and the word is they’re not using so much these days. 

So with luck we can start to find price cuts again.