For Seller

By: Robert Meier

Cocalo, a designer of moderately priced crib bedding since the late 1990’s, manufactures crib bedding and nursery accessories collections under its house brand, Cocalo, and a variety of licensed brands, including: Baby Martex, OshKosh, and Kimberly Grant. Most of its recent new patterns have been released under their Cocalo name. But Sweet Shop, released in early 2006, was a surprise addition to its Baby Martex line, and represents a creative thematic approach that gives new moms an interesting alternative in a market that appears dominated by jungle animals, frogs, and bugs. At less than $200 for a four-piece set, it appears very reasonably priced for the quality delivered.

Sweet Shop crib bedding is normally sold as a four-piece set, consisting of a lightweight quilt, dust ruffle, four-sided bumper, and fitted crib sheet. Moms should be pleased to see that Cocalo sells this pattern in the four-piece set. Cocalo, following the lead of other manufacturers, is increasingly introducing new patterns in six-piece sets which include a diaper stacker and valance. The smaller sets, combined with the availability of the other items as separate accessories, provides the consumer with the most flexibility. Unfortunately, none of the pieces of the Sweet Shop four-piece set is available separately, thereby reducing consumer choices. In particular, an extra fitted sheet, frequently requested by consumers, is not available for the Sweet Shop collection.

A surprisingly extensive selection of nursery décor accessories are also available, including: musical mobile, lamp shade, wall hangings, wall border, a variety of themed pillows, valances, and diaper stacker. While the Sweet Shop collection is dominated by pink fabrics, give serious consideration to using other colors for the walls, to avoid the risk of having the wall colors wash out the colors of the bedding itself. I have had a professional interior designer recommend two possibilities - a pale lavender and a soft off-white - each of which provide a very effective "stage" on which to display this very cute collection.

What clearly sets this pattern apart from its competitors is the ice cream shop theme. As a retailer of crib bedding, and a frequent reviewer of crib bedding merchandise, I sometimes tire of seeing the same old themes over and over again -animals, bugs, sports, cowboys, and flowers seem to account for well over 90% of all themed bedding collections. Sweet Shop, with its unique ice cream shop theme, is a breath of fresh air for those looking for something different. Unfortunately for Cocalo, I find that people on my website have a hard time finding it because of the unusual theme - many people choose to look for bedding by theme and Sweet Shop falls into my nondescript "Other Themes" category, not frequented by customers. This is unfortunate, because those who find it, appear to love it, based upon various consumer sentiment statistics that I watch.

Sweet Shop is very high quality for its price point. I have a strong personal preference for patterned fabrics that are woven, not printed. In woven fabrics, differently dyed or colored threads are woven together in a manner to create the desired pattern. Contrast this with printed fabrics, where a pattern is imprinted on the surface of a solid colored fabric. Woven fabrics are superior to, and more expensive than, printed fabrics, being more vibrant, durable, and color-fast. Most of the patterned fabrics used in Sweet Shop are of the higher quality woven variety. The array of textured fabrics is impressive: tweed, corduroy, chenille, and a shiny sherpa. This is a very touchable bedding collection.

Robert Meier is President of Baby Supermall, an online retailer of