Bloomberg QuickTake Originals 29,004 views. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The online only mattress retailers actually have a higher average margin than a brick and mortar retailer (even though they claim the opposite). So, are you sure your not pissed that folks bought the less expensive option. The actual mattresses are kept in single local/regional warehouse for delivery. Like there will be three in a row sometimes, or it seems like there's one in nearly every strip mall. Why Are There So Many Mattress Stores In Austin? There are three primary reasons why there are so many mattress stores in America: Running a mattress store … It certainly feels like there is no possible way that all of those stores could sell enough mattresses to turn a profit especially when they are sometimes directly across the street from each other. But - with such a high mark-up, why had it taken SO long for alternative companies to come in and undercut? A place to discuss anything to do with mattresses, mattress accessories, and sleep technology. There are so many mattress stores in the America, and they always seem to be empty. It's pretty cheap to set up a showroom with 2-3 people working there. This is what you're looking for http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/. A mattress can easily be marked up 40, 50 percent, 100 percent, and even more. : Planet Money There are so many mattress stores in America, and they always seem to be empty. How many mattresses can you sell in a day to make a store like that profitable? How did they end up catty-corner across intersections and in the same shopping centers? “Honestly, I have bought one mattress in my adult life, and I cannot conceive how a city can sustain so many mattress stores,” Arens-Terpstra said. Wow. A comment on Reddit … Why are there so many Mattress Firms right next to each other? Likelihood of Being Satisfied: Online Buying Vs Store Buying. Which seems crazy – people buy coffee quite often whereas mattresses are purchased on average every decade – how is this possible? http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/. Many consumers believe there is a much higher risk of being dissatisfied when buying a mattress online – that is, when buying it untried without an opportunity to lie on it first.. Our research shows, however, that owner satisfaction is fairly similar whether people try a mattress before buying or not. The mattress stores are visible because so many people drive by them every day, McDermott said. You used to just buy mattresses in furniture stores. The mark up on a typical mattress sold in stores can be anywhere from 100-500%, and even more in some cases. The reasons are similar to why there are so many physical stores. Driving by this cluster made Tanya Self and her boss reach out to 2 Wants to Know and ask, "Why are there so many mattress stores?" By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. Why are there so many mattress stores in Chicago? Mattress Firm, in an annual investor deck (you can google it, it's public information) quotes a statistic about how, on average, they can recover the cost of acquiring a store within 12 months (hence funding their consolidation of the market). So how can they afford the real estate? - Duration: 3:15. And how do they stay in business? Actually, furniture carries a higher average margin than mattresses. Bedbugs forces you to buy a new mattress no matter how old your mattress is. Clothes have a higher margin than mattresses and countless other items that you purchase on a much more regular basis. Most mattress "stores" are actually just showrooms. Turns out the economics make perfect sense: Running a mattress store doesn’t cost much. Update: 2018-12-13 8. Honestly, I have bought one mattress in my adult life and I cannot conceive how a city can sustain so many mattress stores. Are the mattresses full of money? share. Funny. Press J to jump to the feed. Yet here, in 2018, there are countless Mattress Firmy-type stores that persist, despite not having what business professionals and humans with eyes would call “any hope of a customer base.” My impression is that it only takes ~25 sales a month to keep a mattress store going, and even after Mattress Firm bought up all the stores and filled them with the same people / product / prices, they didn't stop making money. So … And so, in the last three years or so, much of this pent-up demand has really released and encouraged many of these mattress companies to open new stores at a rather rapid pace. A conspiracy theory recently went viral on Reddit after a user suggested that Mattress Firm was a front for a large scale money laundering scheme. 2) The average lifespan of a mattress is 8 to 10 years. Feb. 17 -- You can’t walk more than a couple blocks in Manhattan without passing a Starbucks, Chase Bank or Duane Reade. Mattress Firm has received some unlikely attention this week after a wild conspiracy theory about why there are so many store locations went viral on Reddit. Why are there so many mattress stores? There's more I can add to this list, but I'm sure you get the point. Where the family gives asks Why Are There So Many Mattress Stores and Other Questions. In less than half a square mile, count them - six mattress stores. They are often clustered so closely together in towns and cities that you can literally drive to three or four mattress stores within a radius of a mile or two. Inventor of the keyboard shortcuts, and now I notice they are.. 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