Celebrating its 15th anniversary, Mattress Depot USA provides relaxing

and friendly environments for customers to buy comfortable products.

By Alan Dorich

Mattress Depot USA provides its clients with a relaxed, friendly environment, unlike its competitors, President, CEO and owner David Smith says. “When you go into a lot of mattress stores, they’ll put salesmen right up at the front door,” he says.

“When you walk in the door, you’re either staring in the face of the salesperson or you’ve got to respond to them,” he says. “When you walk into Mattress Depot, there’s kind of a flow where customers can start browsing before they’re [approached].”

Smith, a longtime veteran of the mattress industry, founded Bellevue, Wash.-based Mattress Depot USA in 2002. Previously, he co-founded a mattress store in Las Vegas with a partner in 1996.

Although he eventually parted ways with the Las Vegas stores, the experience allowed him to form many contacts in the mattress industry. These proved useful years later, when Smith got the idea for Mattress Depot USA after shopping with his wife in 2002.

“Having been in the back office side, I was just amazed at what customers were having to deal with when they mattress shop,” he recalls. Smith then reconnected with his mattress industry colleagues and began buying mattresses from factories across the United States.

Business Boom

Smith, who had a full-time job with IBM, sold mattresses on the weekends. “I couldn’t believe the growth and demand,” he says. “I had this full-time job, but on the weekend I was even busier.”

Sales were so strong that Smith found he could sell five to 10 mattresses per day. When clients wanted to buy mattresses during the week, he added a salesperson. “I hired him and boom, just right off the bat, we were doing great numbers,” he recalls.

Smith then began opening retail locations. “We started signing leases, opening up stores and hiring employees,” he says. “The business grew to where I had to leave my other job and continue to hire more salespeople and team members to fill the stores.”

For Everybody

Today, Mattress Depot USA has 31 locations in Washington and Oregon that sell mattresses, pillows, bed bases and other products. This year, Smith notes, marks the company’s 15th anniversary.

“It seems just like yesterday that we celebrated the 10th,” he recalls, noting that the company will mark the occasion with tent sales at its locations. “We sell like it’s a month’s long celebration.”

Its stores, he adds, offer a diverse selection of different brands, including Serta, Simmons and Sealy. “Ninety percent of our products are manufactured and sourced in the Washington/Oregon/Pacific Northwest market,” he adds.

But Mattress Depot USA’s associates understand that they are selling more than a mattress. “We’re selling a good healthy night’s sleep,” Smith says, noting that they aim to provide customers with the correct comfort and support. ”That’s truly what they want.”

Its clients, he adds, range from millennials to seniors. “We’re delivering to the retirement centers all the time,” he says. “At the same time, we’re delivering to these studio apartments. Our business strategy is to be the mattress store for everybody.”

The Complete Package

Five of Mattress Depot USA’s locations are franchise stores and the company is planning to add more. The previous success of the brand makes it a wise investment for potential franchisees, Smith says.

“It’s a brand and business model that works,” he says, noting that this eliminates the uncertainty that a franchisee would feel with a business that has not yet established itself in the market.

Mattress Depot USA also can guide its franchisees to avoid the mistakes they would make if they started a new business. “As the franchisor, we provide full complete training support for starting up a new franchisee,” he says.

“That starts all the way from site selection to employee hiring to training,” Smith says. “It’s really a complete turnkey package that they’re getting.”

The company also directs them to which vendors they need for the purchase of signage and carpeting for their stores. “You already know you’re getting best pricing and best quality through these pre-approved vendors,” he says.

Better and Better

Mattress Depot also provides franchisees with marketing elements, including the creation of ads, logos and a sales strategy. “If you’re not a one-man shop and you’re starting out, you’re not getting that support,” Smith says.

“Every year, we get better and better with our marketing strategy,” he continues, adding Mattress Depot USA ran a successful campaign this Halloween. Although some might not think the spooky holiday would be a good fit with products focused on giving their users a good night’s sleep, the company found the right approach.

“We did a ‘Flashback ‘80s’ sale where we had our employees dress up in ‘80s garbs,” he says, adding that its TV commercial also featured employees wearing mullets and using the larger cell phones of the era.

“It was a really fun, light-hearted commercial and marketing blitz,” Smith says. “It was able to take advantage of the high retail sales of the Halloween holiday in the mattress store environment.”

Solid Strategies

Mattress Depot USA is seeing an increase of online competitors in its market. “What they call ‘bed-in-a-box’ online sales is something that has started to gather a little more steam,” Smith says.

Although these competitors are taking a portion of the market, “Our strategy has been to move up the food chain and sell more recognized name brands,” he says. The company also has developed its own line of bed-in-a-box mattresses.

“We’re not necessarily always shipping them online,” he notes. “We can take our box and stick it in the trunk of [the client’s] car.”

Mattress Depot USA also is developing its own custom mattress program, where customers will be able to create their product with more than 450 different feels. “It’s going to launch at the beginning of 2018,” he says.

Some competitors have custom programs, but “they’re not like this where you’re uniquely changing all the components of the mattress,” he says. “By doing that, you increase the number of different feels, comfort levels and support systems.”

Getting Stronger

Mattress Depot USA is benefitting from its move from a discount retailer to selling higher-end products, Smith says. As the economy has recovered, “[People] are spending more on their mattresses and their sleep environment,” he says.

He sees more growth for the company, which adds two new franchise stores and up to three corporate locations each year. “I would like there to be 200 Mattress Depot USAs,” he says, adding that store sales also will grow. “Each year, we are building a stronger brand.”