Nap In The Box: Watching The Boxed Mattress Boom

By 2019, the global furniture market is slated to reach $695 billion. Among those expenses are our beds. You know, the things we spend a hearty portion of our lives sleeping on? You’ve likely come across an increasing number of ads for mattresses whilst surfing the web. Traditionally, mattresses have been an infrequently purchased commodity associated with large, spacious warehouses wherein a frumpily suited salesperson makes valiant attempts to sell the promise of years of comfort.

We know the real discomfort of sales pitches, especially ones that lead to an expensive purchase that, while necessary, is no small handful of change. Sleep is expensive and getting set up for it is tiring. The traditional buying process is a hassle and that’s where mattress-in-a-box companies have been gathering a firm hold on the evolution of the sleep market.

Since 2014, these companies have been coming out of the woodwork, selling mattresses online with eye-catching advertisements, clever digital marketing campaigns, and slashing prices that seem too good to be true. With the traditional mattress market living in warehouses, these mattress-in-a-box companies are eliminating excessive overhead and are instead spending their time, money, and resources on marketing and running finely polished websites. Of course, still being in their infancy, we’ve yet to see the long-term impact they’ll have on the market, especially since making any sort of headroom will likely be the result of stealing business away from traditional markets. It’s currently too early to tell how it’s going to crumble, but these companies have been increasing in popularity among young buyers who are online, can’t be bothered to go to a warehouse, and are attracted by price point, as well as the ability to try mattresses out for lengthy risk-free trials.

While it’s still too early to tell, predictions point to a normalizing of the market. Right now, these companies are testing their mettle and this sudden influx will likely taper off as the mattress parabola levels out: “I would think there’s going to be two to three of those mattress-in-a-box companies, then I think the door is still open for somebody that does something more innovative than a bed in a box and uses online as their retail channel.”

If there’s one thing we’re sure of, it’s the necessity of sleep. That’s not going anywhere, so as long as human beings have to lie down and rest, the market is open regardless of the creative avenue. It merely depends on how cleverly it’s presented in the future. Sweet dreams out there.