New Sleep Store promises help getting zzzs
With his new store, Zia Sleep Sanctuary, Jim Gabbert hopes to put you to sleep … and maybe sell a few beds and earplugs.
Jim Gabbert will tell you that the key to getting a good night’s sleep does not necessarily lie in your mattress, although that’s a good place to start.
Hypoallergenic sheets, scented candles and a $600 pair of earplugs that drown out snoring are just a few of the almost 1,100 products available at Gabbert’s new store, Zia Sleep Sanctuary, in Eden Prairie. While the store is dominated by high-tech beds and mattresses, these accompanying sleep aids were hand-picked by Gabbert, who is CEO of Edina-based Gabberts Furniture and Design Studio.
“It is a store that tries to bring together all of the possible solutions to help people sleep better,” said Gabbert.
At least one retail analyst thinks Gabbert may have a market.
“I’m not surprised that somebody’s doing it,” said Steve Denault, a retail analyst at Northland Securities in Minneapolis. “There’s sort of a movement in awareness regarding sleep … [and Gabbert] has definitely gotten in front of it with this store.”
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, more than 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders. This week, the sleep industry’s biggest convention of the year drew some 5,400 medical experts and sales reps to Minneapolis. That’s about 10 times the number who came in 1990, when the city last hosted the event.
Denault said he thinks Zia is relatively unusual.
“I have not seen anything that specifically targets sleep that way,” he said.
Quiet holiday season
The 4,500-square-foot store opened at Eden Prairie Center in November and employs six “sleep advisers” who are trained to help customers evaluate their sleep needs.
“What we were looking for in our hiring was people with caregiving experience,” Gabbert said.
He would not disclose the store’s sales to date, but he said the holiday season drew in less business than expected, partly because the J.C. Penney store next door had not yet opened and traffic to his corner of the mall was low.
The new store comes after the recent downsizing and $5 million rejuvenation of Gabberts, a furniture retailer started by Jim’s father, Don Gabbert, in 1946. In 2006, after five years of declining sales, Gabberts pulled out of the Dallas-Fort Worth market and remodeled its flagship Edina store. Jim Gabbert has dabbled in another business in the past: he once started a store selling board games and puzzles, Games by James, which he later sold.
Gabbert said most of Zia’s sales are smaller items, such as CDs and alarm clocks, but he anticipates that mattresses and beds will make up half its business in the long run.
Eden Prairie resident Melanie Fransen, one of two customers Zia drew during lunch hours on Friday, said she appreciated that the store’s sales staff asked her questions about how she slept and what she likes in a bed as she shopped for a mattress. A first-time visitor to the store, Fransen said she is putting more thought into her bedding than ever before.
“As you age, you kind of get pickier,” said Fransen, who also expressed an interest in new pillows and snoring aids for her husband. “I can’t sleep on just any pillow. I think we’re all like that.”
Medical experts skeptical
But some experts are skeptical of nonmedical solutions to sleeping problems.
“There really is no data [that say] any of these things are helpful,” said Dr. Lawrence Epstein, past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, who teaches at Harvard Medical School.
Epstein, who was in town this week for the sleep convention, said he is not familiar with Zia or its products. But, he said, there are a few basic things people can do to sleep better, including getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, following a regular sleep routine, avoiding caffeine and alcohol before sleep, banishing televisions and computers from the bedroom and ensuring a dark, quiet environment.
If all that doesn’t work, he said, people should see a doctor to see if they have a medical condition.
The value of a place like Zia is that it encourages people to think more about proper sleeping habits, said Sandy Brandley, a clinician and supervisor of the Park Nicollet Sleep Store on the Methodist Hospital campus in St. Louis Park. The Sleep Store specializes in clinically recommended equipment to treat such disorders as obstructive sleep apnea and upper airway resistance syndrome.
“People consistently underestimate their need for sleep,” Brandley said. “[Comfort items] can help people to have a better night’s sleep … but they certainly aren’t going to help people with true sleep disorders.”
Gabbert launched an online version of his store about a month ago. He said he hopes to take Zia nationwide someday and that he will eventually look for investors.