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$1.60 -0.03 (-1.84%)
7/3/2008 1:00 PM

Select Comfort Corp. (SCSS)

CAPS Rating:
***

The Company's principal business is to develop, manufacture, market and support premium quality, adjustable-firmness beds and other sleep-related accessory products.

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Avatar dgpederson (< 20) Submitted: 11/01/07 7:55 PM : Outperform Start Price: $11.20 SCSS Score: -69.07

I used to be a sales professional with scss, but I left this summer after I realized that sales weren't getting any better in the near future. The problem is this. Select Comfort markets their beds to the middle class... that is why their marketing attempts have been unsuccesful. What middle income family can justify this product? especially now. SCSS sales move with the housing market, crunch the numbers and I'm pretty sure that you will find a close correlation.


These are the steps needed to solve the problems:


Advertise when the housing market begins to turn around and when consumer spending is again on the rise. Otherwise their advertisements will fall on deaf ears. People buy a bed when they move, otherwise people can't justify spending $2,000 plus on a new bed.


When they advertise, make sure that they advertise that their beds start at $499, because they do, and you can get a really nice sleep number bed for a low price, not necessarily for $2000.


Use various internet marketing methods. The people who buy their beds are surfing around the internet because they are optimizers. they look for things that can better their lives and save them time. scss needs to put verbage on the internet on sleep in general from sleep experts and how the beds actually help.


They have a great product that 6 million people have already purchased and works wonders for people who have trouble sleeping. Select needs to hire competent and proven execs that can figure out how to market this thing. They hired a female Chief Marketing Officer today. thats a step in the right direction. This purchase is driven by females, no male wants to spend money on a new bed. She will be able to help scss if she isn't a complete idiot. After working at the sales level, I probably have more knowledge of the beds and our customers than any of our execs ever did unfortunately.


I realize this is getting long and tedious, but SCSS hasn't even moved to the coasts yet, their most mature and developed market is in Minnesota! Where the company was founded! When sales branch to the coasts the company profits will skyrocket.





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Avatar brybat (< 20) Submitted: 12/05/07 6:36 PM

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I appreciate your sales professionals point of view. I like CAPS posts from people with "first hand knowlege" of a company because there are fewer of those. Most of us are interpereting what we "read" about a company.

In case it is of interest to you, here is a lost customers point of view. When I went to the SCSS store in March, the saleswoman was so busy pushing the expansive bed that I was unaware, until you told me, of the 499.00 bed that I could have afforded! They kept remote control hidden so I had to wait for someone to help me. After a few minutes of being ignored I left. I came back later in the day and waited 10 minutes for the saleswoman to finish with another customer before I could try it. She stood over me and talked the whole time and would not give me the remote control to try on my own. I was uncomfortable and left.

It's great to have an insiders view of the problems of SCSS. I will be watching what you have to say in the future about SCSS. I'm sure, even though you no longer work there, that you will recoginze many things that people like me won't. Maybe with all of us on CAPS we can notice the little signals that SCSS is correcting its problems and is ready to begin a turnaround. Then we can start buying before the Wall Street crowd notices.

Congratulations on your first post, it was neither long nor tedious. Keep writing!

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Avatar freefall51 (57.50) Submitted: 12/22/07 9:30 AM

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Insightful comments; of the sort I am looking for every day all day long. Thanks.

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Avatar RugbyViking13 (93.11) Submitted: 12/30/07 1:21 AM

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as a sales person i hate when my company advertises the price because it doesn't give you a chance to build the value of the high end products, and the people who bought the more expensive products will often come back upset when they see a lower advertised price... just a thought

if people believe that select comfort will cure their back pain they will buy... at any price

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