Merchandise Spotlight: Down Comforters
Ooh, pretty—that’s the feeling one gets leafing through bedding catalogs. All the linens look crisp, fresh and inviting. But, from synthetic to the real stuff, nothing evokes the desire to crawl in and curl up quite like a down comforter.
So it was surprising that several of the catalogs reviewed this month do not show their down comforters on a bed.
And with the broad array of weights, materials and colors available for today’s down comforters, it was odd that only two catalogs of those surveyed offered the comforters in colors other than white.
James Padgitt, president and chief catalog consultant of Direct Marketing Insights in Mount Pleasant, SC, assisted Catalog Success in its review of home catalogs featuring the down comforter. Overall, he says, presenting merchandise in its end use is very important to mail order shoppers. In the case of down comforters, they should be shown on a bed.
“It is important that the photography give the customer as clear a picture about how it will look in the house as possible,” says Padgitt. “Show it on top of the bed, not on a deck chair on your patio. They should be able to take the visual you give them and say, ‘I can see that on my bed in the master bedroom.’”
The Company Store possibly used outdoor settings to play up the myriad colors of its goose down comforters and to highlight the nature-related names: celadon, lake, aegean, wisteria, carnation.
“The names of the colors are so incidental, it seems too much of a stretch,” says Padgitt. “To me a bed on a deck looks strange. Maybe it’s something their art director thinks is clever, but I doubt many consumers identify with that. From a selling standpoint, they didn’t present as well as they could have.”
Padgitt seriously objected to The Company Store’s spread featuring its down comforter draped on deck chairs. It does show one comforter set on a bed, but the bed appears to be on a patio, which Padgitt says makes it hard for customers to visualize it in their home.
Padgitt, however, did like one thing about The Company Store’s presentation—the icons that symbolize each comforter’s weight: palm trees for warm weather, oak leaves for crisp, fall weather; and snowflakes for winter. The number of icons further differentiates the weights.
The Company Store’s goose down comforter is an exclusive. Offered in the May 2000 catalog, the company presents it as “supersized,” about 14˝ larger than other comforters. It provides four types of comforters, each with different types of feathers as fill materials. It also offered myriad fill powers (the amount of fill in cubic inches per ounce), baffles (pockets where fill is sewn in), and stitchery (the design used for the baffles).
Prices range from $99 for a low-end twin size comforter to $389 for a high-end king size.
Pottery Barn debuted its new Bed + Bath catalog in Spring 2000. Filled with eclectic houseware items—including gingham patterned toothbrushes—it also offered one down comforter. True to Pottery Barn fashion, it displays all its products in an at-ease setting. Unfortunately, that can often make it difficult to see the products, as was the case with the down comforter. Strewn across the foot of a bed in one promo shot and stacked among other blankets in another, Pottery Barn never shows the comforter on a bed, so buyers can’t see the product’s qualities.
“In some cases, the comforters don’t look any bigger than the blankets,” laments Padgitt. “You’d expect the comforter to look bigger than the blanket. The other thing that is puzzling is that the blanket costs more than the comforter. These things make the customer take pause. They think, ‘It must be a really skinny comforter,’ and then look somewhere else.”
The back page presentation, where the catalog drapes the comforter over the bed post, is further complicated by the lack of contrast in the photo. Because all the products are white, they get lost, and the overlaying text is too small. Still, the photo does stay true to Pottery Barn’s recognizable clean-looking shots, which is great for branding.
Bloomingdale’s by Mail simply offers three comforters: better, best, supreme. They don’t come in different weights, just different fill sizes, (the base measurement of fill power) —ranging from 22 ounces to 27 ounces for a twin; 29 ounces to 34 ouncesfor the queen and 35 ounces to 40 ounces for the king. It is offered only in white, with pricing from $149.99 for the better twin to $349.99 for the supreme king.
“The copy is extremely brief. I doubt there is enough material to give consumers confidence to spend $300 to $400 on a comforter,” says Padgitt.
One of the catalog’s biggest oversights is not listing dimensions for the products. It never details the size of a king, queen or twin.
Shown in little squares, the comforters are folded upon themselves and not displayed on a bed.
“The visual presentation is very poor,” says Padgitt. “They don’t show it on a bed; all they have done is fold them and they all look the same. Visually they don’t look any different. The Supreme looks a little fatter, but it is a boring presentation that won’t really get customers excited about the product.”
Schweitzer, which offers a comprehensive line of bedding products, presented most of its down comforters on the order form insert. The book actually has two such inserts printed on thin opaque stock. The photographs are backed up with drawings that illustrate how the comforters look stretched across a bed.
“My guess would be if they showed them on a full page they’d sell a whole lot more,” says Padgitt, who was unimpressed by Schweitzer’s presentation. “The photo on that item is not very becoming. It looks to me that they put it among fairly minor products. At $150 to $310, you’d really think they’d want more space and more detailed treatment.”
Three models are offered by Schweitzer: the Snow Flake with 575 fill power, the Supreme with 600 fill power and Calla Lily with 650 fill power. The cataloger also offers an allergy-free model filled with synthetic down. The synthetic versions are a fraction of the price.
The catalog cut all prices by $105 to $110 for the off season. In spite of that, it had some of the highest prices, climbing up to $500.
Cuddledown of Maine devoted the most space to down comforters, seven pages. “The catalog I would buy from would be Cuddledown of Maine,” says Padgitt definitively.
It is important to keep in mind that catalogs focused on bedding often have a better presentation than those that offer only a handful of products. Catalogs will devote more space and copy to their best-selling and most profitable product lines. Cuddledown of Maine is a bedding catalog, whereas Bloomingdale’s by Mail offers a variety of merchandise.
Impressed by the catalog’s overall presentation and devotion to the product line, Padgitt says this book did everything right. Its best attributes include great photography, copy that instills confidence, a wide product selection and proper merchandise displays.
Inside the three spreads, Cuddledown offers myriad down comforter models and extensive copy. Each presentation includes a larger photo and a narrow column of copy describing the bedding’s attributes and price.
Cuddledown provides personal vignettes, revealing the cover fabric origins, fibers used, the intricate stitchery and how the catalog chooses its products.
“We buy 100% silk fabric woven for us in Germany and fill it with absolutely the finest goose down the world has to offer—the result is a comforter so exceptional that it will be passed from generation to generation .... Each is filled with our 800 fill power European Goose Down from the far North where frigid Arctic temperatures produce a unique type of natural insulation. Over the years, we’ve done many appraisals of antique comforters and none has been finer than our heirloom quality. We make each comforter by hand for you in our Portland, Maine factory.”—Heirloom Silk & Down Comforter.
“Generally, they understand the consumer is making a major purchase,” says Padgitt. “You don’t take a purchase like that lightly. They do everything they can to make it easy for the customer to get a feeling of comfort.”
Cuddledown devotes an entire spread to “How to Choose a Down Comforter.” Using four weather-related icons to indicate the seasons, it details which comforter works best for each climate, bedroom temperature and heated beds. Piled high in the middle of the spread are the four types of comforters offered, so customers can compare the finishes. Each comforter’s characteristics are also outlined briefly at the bottom of the page.
“It is detailed and focuses on features and benefits. It is good, classic catalog copy,” says Padgitt. “The photography shows the comforters on a bed in an attractive room setting, which is the way a customer wants to visualize it. There is no better way to do that.”
Cuddledown had by far the highest prices. To simplify the price-driven customer’s choice, Cuddledown supplies a pricing chart. The low end, which starts with the summer comforter, is $89 for the twin and rises to $1,099 for the Level Four Baffled Batiste.
“They offer every weight, every finish from basic to moderate to expensive and elegant. They come across as people who understand the experience of comforter buying,” says Padgitt.
