Tempur-Pedic tests bed-in-a-box
It won’t be offered for sale in stores.
Tempur-Pedic is jumping into the bed-in-a-box game.
The mattress brand, part of Tempur Sealy International, is introducing its first bed-in-a-box as the mattress industry grapples with the fallout from over-expansion and digital competition.
The Tempur-Cloud will range in price from $1,499 for a twin to $2,199 for a king, which is about three to four times more expensive than the cheapest bedin-a-box options on the market.
It’s a test for now. The company is launching the 10-inch-tall product in Seattle to hone its marketing and logistics plan, Tempur Sealy North America President Rick Anderson told USA TODAY.
“This largely is a play for convenience,” Anderson said. “We understand the market well, we understand the potential for it, we understand its size.”
Like its competitors, the TempurCloud mattress will be compressed into
a cardboard box for delivery. When opened, it will gradually unfold into sleeping shape.
Anderson said designers placed special emphasis on “pressure relief,” “motion transfer” and “temperature control.”
The product will be sold at TempurCloud.com. It won’t be offered for sale in stores, unless something changes, Anderson said.
It’s not the first bed-in-a-box product from Tempur Sealy, which sells such products as the middle-market Cocoon mattress. But it’s the first one to be sold under the Tempur-Pedic brand.
“We’ve been working on this for a couple of years,” Tempur Sealy CEO Scott Thompson told investors last week in a conference call. “When (you) see the product and test the product, you will conclude also that this truly is a Tempur bed.”
Thompson said the product would soon hit more “major cities” in addition to Seattle.
The Tempur-Cloud’s introduction comes as a furious competition has roiled the traditional mattress industry, leading to mass store closures, discounts, lawsuits and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of the nation’s leading mattress seller, Mattress Firm.
Mattress companies are under pressure from digital competition, including surging bed-in-a-box sellers includingCasper and Leesa.
“The incumbents in this space continue to be distressed,” Casper CEO Philip Krim told USA TODAY last month. “They continue to not understand where the consumer landscape is going in this category, and the owners of the respective businesses clearly are starting to see that.”
The industry also has been grappling from the fallout of over expansion in recent years, particularly involving Mattress Firm, which closed about 700 stores in connection with its 2018 bankruptcy.
Anderson estimated that the mattress industry has closed about 1,000 locations in the past 12 to 24 months.
But some chains are still expanding, including Tempur Sealy.
Tempur-Pedic has about 44 stores and eventually expects to have 100 to 125, Anderson said.
Casper has 23 stores open so far and plans to open “dozens” more this year, Krim said. But he predicted that more traditional retailers will close stores.
“I think you’re going to continue to see a substantial retail shakeout,” Krim said.