Differentiating Your Mattress Store from a Bed-in-a-Box Mattress

Today's mattress retailer is in a bind.

Buying mattresses online is an inherently dicey proposition for any consumer. Not only do they lack the option of trying the mattress on for size at a store, but good luck also getting it back in the box if it does not work! Unfortunately, it is difficult for retailers to convey this reality to impatient and busy shoppers without sounding a tad sour grape.

Unsure how to compete with the convenience of online services, mattress retailers have taken various approaches: offering their own online services, hating e-commerce in marketing, wheedling customers with ever-steeper discounts, and throwing up their hands in despair.

None of these approaches is going to prove particularly helpful to your cause. Instead of worrying about or railing against the reality of the bed-in-a-box bed industry, you need to differentiate yourself from online retailers. Brick-and-mortar mattress stores have one massive advantage over e-commerce shops: the ability to help customers choose the right mattress in person using a mattress recommendation system.

If you are ready to take your mattress business to the next level, it is time to learn the 21st-century techniques you need to pair each shopper with their perfect product. Read on.

Bed-in-a-Box Mattresses: What is the Deal?

Online mattress sellers have taken over significant market share in the last decade. As Mattress Clarity explains, "In 2014, the industry underwent major change. Thanks largely to the emergence of the Casper brand, which helped pioneer the model of mattresses being sold online directly to consumers, the bed-in-a-box trend took off."

It is no surprise that an unfilled e-commerce niche exploded. Still, in the case of online mattresses, the numbers were shocking: "In less than seven years, the number of new players in the mattress space has ballooned from approximately one dozen startups to more than 175 online mattress brands, including new heavy-hitters such as Leesa, Nectar, and Purple."

However, lest you assume that is just the new state of the industry, take heart. Even now, many mattress retailers are not playing in the online space. Nap Lab explains that "only 38% of mattress retailers sell their products online." According to the most recently available statistics, more than 40% of consumers still bought their mattresses from specialty stores and even more from brick-and-mortar locations.

Even better news: this industry is enormous. Everyone needs somewhere to sleep, after all. Estimates range for its value, with Mattress Clarity stating, "The mattress industry was valued at a staggering $50.61 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow to $52.45 billion in 2024." The teensiest fraction is enough to keep your business afloat for generations.

So, how do you seize that tiny fraction? By facing mattress retail challenges head-on.

The Challenges of Brick-and-Mortar Sales

Most physical mattress retail locations face various challenges, some of which are shared by online platforms, others of which are not. These include:

• Price: Many mattresses cost more than $5,000, which is a lot for anyone to drop at one time. This leads to a natural reluctance on the part of shoppers to commit.
• Additional costs: Some mattress retailers deliver for free, while others feel they must charge extra fees to provide such services, which can also be off-putting compared to online shops.
• Price competition: Some online retailers do only one thing, so they benefit from economies of scale that mattress retailers selling multiple brands cannot leverage.

The good news is that a mattress recommendation system can help you address all these issues. Sensor mats, when laid over a mattress, help create a sleep profile for each shopper. This profile shows exactly what they need to prevent stiffness, soreness, and injury and promote the best possible night's sleep.

Unfortunately, such systems provoke a whole new set of challenges from many retailers, such as:

• Retail sales associates who are not convinced of the system's power.
• Associates who are not trained in its use due to disinterest or turnover.
• Competition for floor space, which some managers believe is better used by storing more inventory rather than setting up a mattress fitting station.

The truth is that good data is critical to the white glove mattress buying experience. If you want to differentiate yourself

How to Provide a White Glove Mattress Buying Experience

The goal of any mattress shopper is sleep improvement. As that is the goal of any mattress seller, you would think the relationship between shopper and seller would be an amicable one from the start, but that is often not the case. Customers feel they are in an adversarial position with the salesperson, and they are suspicious because you have not given them the tools to help them believe you are on their side.

A mattress recommendation system heals this relationship, showing shoppers precisely what they need and removing your "biased" opinion. It thus provides you with a vast number of benefits, including:

• A consistent, dependable, and repeatable process that saves you time and makes your workflow more efficient.
• As a result, a reliably high-quality experience for the shopper.
• An experience your customers cannot replicate online, no matter how hard bed-in-a-box suppliers try to mimic it with interactive programming.
• Increased customer confidence, repeat purchases, and word-of-mouth marketing.
• Higher traffic and increased market share versus online retailers.
• Sponsorships from manufacturers if you move lots of product.
• Higher revenue streams, better numbers, happier salespeople, and less turnover.
• Measurable performance backed by data and analysis.

The Complete Mattress Recommendation System from XSENSOR

If you are ready to partner with your shoppers to create unique in-store experiences, then you are ready for REVEAL® by XSENSOR. Retailers must no longer convince customers; now, you can let the data do the talking.

The REVEAL® Mattress Recommendation System provides advanced pressure data that shows exactly where discomfort builds up while sleeping, so you can collaborate with customers to choose the mattress that will alleviate their problem. If it sounds easy, that is because it is. All you must do is contact us to learn more.