Following today’s release of Dreams’ figures for the 52 weeks ending 24th December 2023; Matt Walton, senior retail analyst, at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view: “Dreams outperformed the bedroom furniture market in 2023 as its improved product quality and promotional campaign with Gillian Anderson which launched towards the end of 2023 encouraged constrained customers to buy, with total sales in its FY2023 up 2.2% to £395.4m. This performance was aided by its strong presence within the mattress market, where it is the market leader, which remained resilient in 2023 as greater awareness of the importance of sleep health encouraged shoppers to prioritise replacement purchases. The retailer’s greater focus on quality, coupled with its affordable price points, has helped it maintain its value credentials.
“The £4m marketing campaign which launched in October 2023 featuring Gillian Anderson will have helped drive store footfall and supported revenue growth. This will have continued into 2024 as Anderson featured in the third iteration of the campaign alongside Team GB Olympians and Paralympians. The benefits of this campaign, combined with a £16.2m investment in its stores and delivery network, continued into 2024 with GlobalData’s Quarterly Home Tracker indicating that its conversion rate among bedroom furniture shoppers grew by 3.5 and 6.0 ppts in Q1 and Q2 respectively. This investment includes a new distribution centre in Willenhall, West Midlands which will help shorten delivery times. This will become pivotal as furniture shoppers become more comfortable with buying big-ticket items online, preventing online pureplays such as MattressNextDay and Mattresses Online from gaining greater traction.
“The prospects for Dreams in 2024 remain positive. The mattress market continues to grow, aided by a 7.7% y-o-y growth in imports between January and July 2024, and with consumers experiencing real wage growth during the year, more shoppers are trading up to premium mattresses. The investment Dreams made in 2023 has put it in a strong position once consumer confidence fully recovers, and it is also sheltered to an extent from the disruption to imports in the Red Sea by manufacturing over half of its products domestically. Its focus on quality has been reiterated by it being awarded the Manufacturing Guild Mark by the Furniture Makers Company in May 2024, the highest award the charity awards for quality.”
