With annual sales over $1 billion, Sealy is a global leader in the bedding industry. To better integrate their brand across channels, Sealy sought to recreate their flagship site by streamlining the shopping experience for consumers while driving more traffic to their 3000 retail partners.
“ We have distinct brand positioning…phenomenal digital assets, intuitive and engaging navigation, and most importantly, a highly productive site that will drive consumers to our retailer partners. Sealy has an exciting new website that far exceeds any other website in the industry. „
- Margo Borgione, Director, Global Marketing, Sealy Inc.
Challenge
Sealy is the bedding industry’s largest global manufacturer with sales of $1.3 billion in fiscal 2009. The Company manufactures and markets a broad range of mattresses and foundations under the Sealy®, Sealy Posturepedic®, including SpringFree™, PurEmbrace™ and TrueForm®; Stearns & Foster®, and Bassett® brands. Sealy operates 25 plants in North America, and has the largest market share and highest consumer awareness of any bedding brand on the continent. In the United States, Sealy sells its products to approximately 3,000 customers with more than 7,000 retail outlets. Sealy is also a leading supplier to the hospitality industry.
Sealy’s website had some challenges. The CMS was homegrown and site editors could not make quick marketing and merchandising changes to update the site to match the brand and new product releases. They needed a solution that would enable editors to make changes easily and quickly to their site, while being able to track analytics.
Solution
Working with Sitecore partner Gorilla, Sealy chose Sitecore as the platform for their website for the following reasons:
- The Microsoft WindowsTM-like desktop-style interface was familiar and intuitive
- The powerful integrated publish/versioning feature
- The model of separating data from presentation was appealing
- They felt that the “on page” editor was perfect for the marketing department
Gorilla provided creative design consulting services built around a complete technical discovery and Sitecore CMS integration, giving Sealy unmatched flexibility to connect with their customers. Customers can now search the site by mattress type or brand, check out the “Mattress Guide” to help them with their selection, compare brands, and find a retailer in their area.
“Gorilla was asked to do a technology review of several CMS and provide a recommendation,” says Brian Grady, Principal, Gorilla. “By far, Sitecore was the right strategic investment for Sealy at the time. The tool actually exceeded our expectations during design, development, and post launch.”
Sealy’s site was integrated seamlessly with Sealy’s custom Warranty Service and Dealer Locator, as well as an advanced version of Google analytics.
Result
Feedback has been wonderful from internal, dealers, executives, investors, customers, partners. Site traffic, time spent on site, and conversions have all increased. The site has more content, leading to more Time on Site (TOS), repeat visitors are spending even more time with the content, and Find a Retailer traffic is up 46%.
As a result of the new site, Sealy:
- Is representing their brand and their products more effectively
- Has improved how they manage the online shopping experience to increase sales
- Can better control the client experience at dealer stores reducing lost sales to in store competition.
According to Margo Borgione, Director, Global Marketing, Sealy Inc., “We have distinct brand positioning…phenomenal digital assets, intuitive and engaging navigation, and most importantly, a highly productive site that will drive consumers to our retailer partners. Sealy has an exciting new website that far exceeds any other website in the industry.”
Solution Special Ingredients
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Sealy’s custom Warranty Service and Dealer Locator
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