There is so much opportunity for innovation today. Yes, even in the home textiles industry! The trick is, you have to look. There are more studies being done today on the impact of innovation than ever before. All these studies overwhelmingly conclude that those companies who are not averse to risk and who embrace innovation, consistently experience exceptional growth and regularly outperform those competitors who do not embrace innovation.
Historically, in great part, top of the bed manufacturers have been unwilling to go outside their comfort zone even though as we can see by the current state of the industry, it has not served them very well. Kudos to Joy Mangano for stepping up to the plate and at least trying something genuinely new. Regardless of the outcome, there are lessons to be learned from her efforts.
Compare the potential revenue generated by one lucrative licensing agreement with a designer to the revenue that would be generated by a truly innovative “product ” for the top of the bed. The revenue from a new “product” would easily surpass revenues from the designer brands. This holds particularly true if the product was a "new component" that could take full advantage of every single bedding ensemble sold regardless of the brand or market segment.
The consensus is that for the most part manufacturers and retailers in this industry are operating from a fear based mentality. Perhaps at any other time in the history of the industry this might be an acceptable response but in the current environment, this way of operating isn’t working. To date, there isn’t any innovative product that the industry has developed that would generate revenues that would rival even a single one of the more lucrative designer brands.
There is a great deal of extremely viable IP pertaining to the home textiles industry out there however, manufacturers' focus and strategies have for the most part been misdirected, and as a result they seemed to have lost the ability to recognize opportunity. If the basis for competition has primarily been on price points, it’s time they ask themselves the difficult questions like how low can they go? Both manufacturers and retailers need to change their thinking and address these issues that are having a negative impact in a “different way.”
In order realize any significant new revenue you would have to come up with a new bedding component for the top of the bed. You would have to create a product that would not be vulnerable to commoditization and would not become part of the deflationary trend. To further capitalize on your product you would need to make it available to other manufacturers and to do that it would have to be to some extent proprietary to each manufacturer. The product would also need to delight consumers, and it would need to provide greater margins for the manufacturer. The industry needs to give customers a new reason to purchase bedding and it has to be genuinely new, exciting, and would have to have huge value perception in the mind of the consumer.
As a product developer who owns IP that would answer many of the things that are having a negative impact on manufacturers, I am still in disbelief that none of the manufacturers have responded to or sought to invest in innovation in what are very difficult times for them.
Products have been and are being developed by individuals who may not be working in the industry, and it doesn’t appear, especially in today’s environment, that the industry can afford to ignore or dismiss these innovations, or the folks who are developing these products for them. Yet they do.
As Gary Hamel said in his book ‘Leading the Revolution,’ “Radical innovation is innovation that has the power to change customer expectations, alter industry economics and redefine the basis for competitive advantage.” There are innovations out there that could literally change the vocabulary of bedding and window design, yet there remains a dangerously strong resistance to “thinking differently.” I for one am grateful that Steve Jobs does “think differently" and perhaps one day someone in this industry will too.

He is absolutley right about the sameness/lack of newness in textile products.And our business as a US textiles printer has increased because buyers want something fresh, quickly and without big minimums.Our major retail clients want newness and want it made here.everyone should take a look at this.