Water Bed Industry Tries to Stay Afloat : Sales Slump, Other Problems May Signal Shakeout, Experts Say

The water bed industry, which prospered during the past 20 years despite Johnny Carson’s jokes and nervous landlords, has been hit with with a bucket full of cold water.

“Sales are very soft,” said Ron Lewis, president of Advance Sleep Products, the Carson-based water bed manufacturing subsidiary of Ohio Mattress Co. He noted that the $2-billion-a-year industry’s revenues were down in both 1986 and 1987.

And industry observers say that Friday’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Compton-based TrendWest Furniture Manufacturing, the largest West Coast maker of water bed furniture, may be the beginning of a widespread shakeout. Under Chapter 11, a company is protected from creditors and continues to operate while it reorganizes to pay debts.

TrendWest’s chief executive, Henry Robinson, said slow sales are not his company’s only problem. “Like a lot of other manufacturers, we expanded in the early ‘80s at the rapid pace that the industry was growing. Now that the growth has slowed, that has caused us problems.”

Beyond that, some observers believe that the market has reached the saturation point, at least for the time being.

“I think the water bed product has gained acceptance by a given number of people. We penetrated about 20% of households, which is a lot, but the majority of consumers, we haven’t reached,” said Ralph Bloch, executive director of the National Water Bed Retailers Assn., which represents more than 400 companies that sell water beds and related furniture and such accessories as bed frames, heaters and water bed linens.

Most consumers won’t consider water beds because of “20-year-old myths that relate to the image of sleazy motels and sex,” Bloch said, adding that water bed retailers haven’t done much to counteract that image.

Lewis, who said his company’s sales fell 12% last year, agreed. “We thought we had a great product, but we didn’t tell anybody about it.” Most retailers promote water beds on the basis of low price alone, he said, without telling consumers about the supposed health benefits of owning a water bed.

Retailers are now engaged in price wars to move their products, one industry observer said, which may force more retailers out of the business.

Bloch said manufacturers and retailers might be able to expand the market by increasingly promoting big-name brands, such as Simmons Beautyrest, that consumers will be comfortable with.