The Coronavirus Marketplace

According to a new survey, the pandemic has increased mattress shopping, with emphasis on king-size models and sleep accessories.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the mattress marketplace in a number of significant ways, a consumer study reveals.

Consumers affected by the pandemic are more likely to look for a new mattress, especially a king-size model; purchase sleep accessories like pillows, sheets, mattress pads and mattress protectors; and cite home improvement projects as a trigger for mattress replacement.

Those are some of the key findings of a major consumer research study conducted by the Better Sleep Council, the consumer education arm of the International Sleep Products Association.

Sleep Savvy is taking a deep dive into the survey findings this year in a six-part series, “The Mind of the Mattress Shopper.” It provides an overview of key consumer insights on mattresses and the mattress shopping process.

The insights are important particularly as retailers assess the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, which continues to affect consumer behavior this year, although the recent introduction of vaccines has brought hope that the pandemic can be brought under control sometime this year and that consumer behavior could return to a more normal footing.

As a number of analysts have noted, the pandemic has created a renewed focus on the home, a development that, not surprisingly, has had beneficial results for home products like mattresses and sleep accessories, key elements of consumers’ home cocoons.

“It is critical that bedding retailers understand changing consumer perceptions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mary Helen Rogers, vice president of marketing and communications for ISPA. “This BSC study identifies how the pandemic has changed consumer behaviors that benefit the industry.”

“Although the future course of the pandemic cannot be precisely determined at this point, the focus on the home it has generated has the potential to be a long-term driver of bedding business,” she continued. “A good mattress and good sleep accessories to complement it are at the very heart of consumers’ lives, and never more so than when their overall health is a priority.”

The nationally projectible BSC survey of 1,000 consumers, part of a regular schedule of BSC consumer studies over the past 25 years, took on added importance as retailers sought to understand how the pandemic has changed consumer attitudes about a number of key products.