Startup mattress companies disrupt a stiff business
There’s a new set of companies getting into the mattress game, and they’re disrupting the traditional model of lying on bed after bed to compare. Kyle Stock explores the mattress industry and the newcomers that are changing things up in his piece, “New Startups Aren’t Keeping Big Mattresses Up At Night,” for Bloomberg Business.
In the scope of consumer products, the humble mattress is becoming simpler by the day. A mattress doesn’t need to get faster or smaller or lighter. It doesn’t have to charge more quickly or use less energy. And though bedding now involves complicated chemical formulas rather than horsehair and reeds, it is still primarily a puzzle of textiles.
But a mattress store was still plenty baffling to Jeff Holt, a professional photographer who recently moved to Charleston, S.C., with his girlfriend and her weary, taco-like mattress. They lay on bed after bed, lent a skeptical ear to a dogged salesman, and eventually grew tired—and not from the cushy products.
“It was like going to a restaurant with 200 options on the menu,” Holt said. “All it does is confuse you. And everything about it feels like a car dealership.”
As young companies grow, the future of the industry is uncertain. However, even with the new craft mattress companies starting up, industry giants are doing just fine. Last year, the three biggest public companies, Tempur-Sealy, Select Comfort, and Mattress Firm, saw sales jump 21 percent.
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