There's an article up on Curbed which looks into the surprising number of online mattress-in-a-box companies that have been starting up recently:
Since Casper launched its "mattress in a box" concept in 2014, digital-savvy entrepreneurs have been launching new mattress brands online seemingly every week. Each offers a state-of-the-art mattress made with patented new materials or an innovative design, all compressed into a small box for easy shipping right to your doorstep.
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It's hard to know just how many online mattress-in-a-box companies are floating around, but one such company's CEO said the number could be as high as 150. Another said the number of mattress manufacturers, which are rarely the startups actually marketing the mattresses to consumers, is close to 500.Ideally, a mattress is something you buy once every eight to 10 years, when an old one wears out or a major life event like getting married creates a new household. One can find a quality mattress for around $1,000. Given this is a relatively affordable, infrequent purchase for most households, why do so many companies see an opportunity in the online mattress space?
The article covers the reason for the explosion in the number of these companies, the economics and supply chain behind them, and the longer term survival prospects.
Originally spotted on Hackernews.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tonyPick on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:37AM
I'd heard of a few, mainly through podcast sponsorship (Certainly on "Ear Hustle", "Hello from the Magic Tavern", "The Flop House", and perhaps even "Memory Palace" and probably a few others) and the barrage of youtube adverts.
I always wondered how they were managing to stay in business, especially with the no-questions-asked return policies most of them seem to have (and a mattress isn't exactly re-sellable, or easy to ship back) - I'd have though a bunch of people would buy them then ask for a return just to see if they're told to keep it anyway. Plus Leonard French did few reports on the whole Purple versus Honest Mattress reviews [youtube.com] thing, which just struck me as a strange kind of market to find this kind of conflict in.