Claire Parker, marketing director for the Hammonds Group, gives us a retail perspective of the bedroom market...

To succeed in the bedroom furniture market, you need an acute understanding of what motivates your customers.

At Hammonds, we don't see it as purely selling furniture. We work together with our customers to create inspiration and develop a dream room. 

Contrary to popular belief, the bedroom furniture market is certainly not lacking variety and in fact offers a wide selection of styles and designs that appeal to a broad spectrum of consumer tastes.

The key trends we're seeing coming through at the moment alternate between our classic ranges and our more contemporary products. We're also interested in the growing trend for the juxtaposition of traditional design with modern finishes.

This influence is so strong at the moment that we're using this approach in our styling and are exploring how this can be brought through into fitted bedroom products.

Currently our gloss doors, combined with textured finishes, are selling very well and we've been impressed by the popularity of the strong, vibrant colours, such as liquorice, aubergine and kiwi.

They look great in photographs, but are also proving to be key commercial choices for us.

Offering a luxurious touch, white - either in gloss, high sheen, glass or matt foil - continues on its upward trend and this is linked to the continuing sales growth of clean, contemporary slab door styling.

What do you think? Email the editor direct: andrew@kbbreview.com