How to achieve better sleep?

When it comes to good health, mattress buyers say a good night’s rest is more critical than healthy eating and exercise, according to a BSC tracking survey.

A new national survey of mattress buyers commissioned by the Better Sleep Council reveals that mattress buyers say a good night’s sleep is even more important than diet and exercise when it comes to their health.

The survey, “Inside the Mind of Today’s Mattress Consumer,” found that 75% of consumers said a good night’s sleep is important to their health, the top ranking on a list of eight factors. A healthy diet was cited by 62% of consumers and ranked No. 4, while physical exercise ranked last among the eight factors, cited by 58% of consumers as important to their health. (These findings are similar to the BSC’s 2020 consumer survey.)

The survey also found that 56% of consumers said they feel good or very good about their sleep.

Conducted in late November, the survey gathered insights from 500 consumers, all of whom had purchased a mattress in the past month or planned to do so within 30 days.

The BSC, the consumer education arm of the International Sleep Products Association, is conducting quarterly surveys throughout the year to give the industry insight into shifting consumer attitudes and behaviors in what has been a time of significant changes in the economy and in the country.

“There’s no argument that 2020 was a crazy year,” says Mary Helen Rogers, ISPA’s vice president of marketing and communications. “Uncertainty, turmoil and change hit virtually everyone and all sectors of the economy, including the bedding products industry. Unlike some other sectors of the economy, mattress sales and revenues were strong in 2020, but how companies did business and how consumers thought about, shopped for and bought bedding products underwent significant transformation.”

The first tracking survey, reflecting consumer sentiment in the fourth quarter of 2020, found consumers are buying mattresses online more frequently, but they miss the in-store shopping experience.

Sixty-seven percent of the respondents in the fourth quarter said they prefer purchasing mattresses online, while 59% said they prefer purchasing bedroom products like sleep accessories online.

But many consumers also said they miss the in-store shopping experience; 67% of mattress buyers expressed that view, while 48% of bedroom products buyers had that opinion.

Surveying consumers’ attitudes toward retailers, the tracker study found that many mattress purchasers are shopping and buying at new retailers, are shopping more locally, and are avoiding retailers that they don’t feel are offering safe shopping experiences.

A majority of the mattress purchasers also are shopping and purchasing new brands, are buying brands they trust, and are buying brands that align with their values, the survey found.

“With so much of their lives being affected by change, people are reacting by searching for and shopping new brands and retailers,” Rogers says.