Springwel Mattress is growing at about 20-25 percent,

By Pranbihanga Borpuzari

When a person shows a tendency toward embracing the good life at the first sign of prosperity, the shopping list generally includes electronic items, clothes, a car, or maybe even a house. A mattress never figures in that list even remotely.

Part of the reason for this is because a mattress is never considered essential in the scheme of things, nor is it seen to be a product worth spending money on.

When Paramjeet Singh decided to get into the mattress industry, it was merely by chance.

Taking on the reins of the family business of making concrete electrical poles after the death of his father, the then 24-year-old Singh decided the company should have a product in the retail space in 1996.

Singh’s idea was to import a quilting machine for mattresses from Korea and start a business around it. That was easier said than done as Singh had no experience in the mattress industry. He scheduled a visit to South Korea but on visiting the machine-producing factory, he was dismayed to see that the machines were much smaller than what he had anticipated.

“I was disappointed at the outcome but within the same plant I saw some machines which were used to make spring mattresses. It was then that I decided to import the machines to make spring mattresses. At an investment of Rs. 4 crore we set up a plant in Bhiwadi,” says Singh, 60.

Tough nut
Though Singh had an idea about the market for spring mattresses, he had not anticipated the problems at hand. In India, the mattresses available during those days were rubberized coir; while foam mattresses and spring mattresses were roughly about three times costlier.

“Initially the perception within India was that a hard mattress is good for your back. The reality is that a mattress should have the correct shape to provide comfort. Softer mattresses are able to keep your spine in proper shape,” says Singh.

The first set of mattresses was priced at about Rs. 7000 each and Singh had to do a lot by way of advertisements, promotions, exhibitions and roadshows to generate interest. “We entered into a tie-up with Indian Spinal Injury Centre to propagate our brand. We tied up with doctors who could explain to patients the ills of a coir mattress as it exerted stress on the spinal cord.” Despite all the hurdles, Singh did manage to clock sales of Rs. 4 crore in the first year. That, however, was simply not enough.

For his business to succeed, Singh needed to tick in higher sales and being a pioneer in the segment meant he had to undertake significant costs on marketing and promotion.

What kept Singh going was the fact that the rubberized coir mattress segment was growing at about 15 percent, but he saw a growth of over 35 percent for his spring mattresses, albeit on a negligible base. Singh did not spread himself thin or look to a pan-India launch. The focus was on metros as affordability was also a factor. However, as word spread and sales started picking up, Singh was quick to expand to other parts of the country. Within the next two and half years, Springwel was available across all states in India.

The strategy mix
What followed was something unprecedented in the sector. For the first time in the industry, Singh introduced the concept of ‘dial-a-mattress’. A customer merely needed to call up the customer care number and a sales executive would come to determine and help the customer choose the correct mattress. They would take the measurements, explain the benefits of materials used, and suggest which mattress would be suitable for the household. In a nutshell, the sales executive would explain in detail all that the consumer needed to know to make a decision.

“There were some imported spring mattresses before Springwel entered the market along with a couple of local manufacturers who were into handmade mattresses. However, while the imported mattresses could never capture the market, the handmade ones soon started receiving numerous complaints,” informs Rajesh Khurana of RK Foam Traders, one of Springwel’s oldest distributors. The local mattresses had a big margin and when Springwel entered the market at a pricepoint of `6000, the local mattresses were also available at the same price.

People quickly moved to Springwel mattresses and other manufacturers soon went out of business. “Another factor which worked for Springwel was its customer service. No consumer had seen such a service in the mattress industry and it won them a lot of customers,” says Khurana.

Singh was, however, faced with a very unique problem: In the western world, there are about four standard sizes of beds.

In India, the size of a bed is not uniform and is often left to the mercy of carpenters. There is no implementation of standards and most make a bed the way they want to make it. “This meant the size of the mattress needs to keep changing. We had to educate the customers and carpenters on the necessity of making beds according to international standards. We also had come up with a scheme where we could customize a mattress according to the specifications of the bed, albeit at a higher cost,” says Singh.

In India about 50 percent of the beds are non-standardized and many a foreign player in the spring mattress category is finding it difficult to break into the market. “These non-standardized beds bring in a lot of inefficiencies to production and ultimately dent the economies of scale. However, this is something we have to live with. To get around this, we had to ensure that we can make mattresses of any shape, size and thickness,” says Singh.

The five-star factor
Hotels became a big touchpoint for Singh. Right from the outset, Singh targeted the five-star hotels across the country and almost every hotel chain came on board. This helped Singh in two ways. While these hotels orders increased his sales, a guest sleeping on such a mattress also understood the comfort of a spring mattress.

The company has created a site where a customer can order online. “This is not so much to increase sales as a customer would still want to feel a mattress, but more to give an idea about the various mattresses available, the costs and also the benefits of each type of spring mattress,” says Singh. Besides mattresses, Singh has expanded his range to include headboards, bases, roll-away beds, pillows, duvets and bed sheets.

Springwel today has a revenue of Rs. 100 crore and is growing at about 20-25 percent. Institutional sales account for about 20 percent of the revenues.

The company has recently entered into a partnership with Bharti Walmart to sell its mattresses and has also taken the franchise route. To increase numbers, Singh has ventured into coir, bonded and Polyurethane (PU) foam mattresses. The company has a partnership with Tempur-Pedic for its luxurious spring mattresses, which are priced as high as Rs. 8 lakh.

Singh is bullish about the future. Says he: “If you take risks judiciously, there is a strong chance that you will succeed. When we started, the consumer was not very conscious. But the market has grown, awareness has increased and hence high-end spring mattresses have made an entry. With time, spring mattresses will become even more prevalent.”

© Entrepreneur India January 2013
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