Beter Bed sales rise as it restructures international business

The Amsterdam and London-listed European furniture retailer said sales at its continuing operations totalled €101.8m in the final quarter of the financial year - an increase of 2.2% year-on-year.

It said the increase was primarily driven by good like-for-like performance in the Netherlands and Belgium.

“In these two markets, strong commercial plans were rolled out with new products, attractive promotions, [and] new innovative campaigns such as the ‘Mattress for Life’,” the Beter Bed board said in its statement.

“Part of the healthy order intakes was already delivered to the customers during the fourth quarter, and the remaining part led to a healthy order book more than €2m ahead of year-end 2017.”

Sales at the company’s Matratzen Concord businesses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland slowly recovered towards the board’s desired level of growth, the board said.

Austria and Switzerland already delivered a promising level of sales growth.

Although sales momentum in Germany improved compared to the first three quarters of 2018, it was impacted by the significant efforts required by the local organisation to successfully complete the “massive” restructuring in the fourth quarter.

“With the restructuring completed, all focus and efforts of the local teams will be on aggressive sales recovery,” the board explained.

“Amongst others, this should result in sharper pricing, new attractive promotions, online sales acceleration, and the commercialisation of new assortment such as the Bodyscout mattress with a consumer price of €179 and the Pura boxspring with consumer prices of €399.”

Total sales in Sweden rose due to the opening of new stores during 2018, Beter Bed reported.

After the successful completion of this first round of store expansion, the focus was set to shift to improving the underlying performance of the current stores.

To deliver a step-change in the performance of the Swedish operation, a new leadership team had been appointed.

“The market shares in both key markets the Netherlands and Germany are expected to continue to improve.

“In the Netherlands the market share improved due to good commercial proposition leading to the healthy development of the order intake.

“The indication of the German market is that the industry will report that the market is still under pressure and, therefore, being worse than the Matratzen Concord performance.”

As it announced at its capital markets day on 26 October, Beter Bed Holding had decided to restructure its international businesses.

At the same event, a new mid-term strategy with an overarching customer promise to offer the best quality rest at affordable prices was presented.

The group leadership team confirmed that those fourth quarter commitments had been successfully delivered, which included the closure of 172 Matratzen Concord stores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with a headcount reduction at the Matratzen Concord support organisation of 64 full-time equivalent employees.

inventory was also reduced by more than €8m, with Beter Bed successfully discontinuing its Spanish operation.

Beter Bed said all plans were successfully executed within its previously-stated one-off restructuring costs, and within the amended agreements with the banks.

“While taking the above measures the company has been working hard to improve the business trends and to launch new initiatives.

“As a result, the first steps to change the sales trend at Matratzen Concord have been taken.

“Secondly, new customer driven assortment such as the Green Motion 100% recyclable mattress and the Wave one size fits all mattress were launched.”

Beter Bed said it would provide further details on 1 March with the publication of its 2018 full-year results.