It’s no secret that the bedding industry has experienced a prolonged slowdown over the last several years. As our editor-at-large Dave Perry recently reported, the U.S. bedding market experienced multiple headwinds in 2025: total market value for U.S.-produced and imported mattresses and foundations dropped 6.5%, while unit shipments fell 13.2%, according to the International Sleep Products Association’s annual trends report.
However, as I’ve previously reported, I believe the bedding industry isn’t in crisis; it is inside a chrysalis. A new way of doing business is emerging, representing a metamorphosis rather than a total decline.
In my weekly conversations with retailers across the country for Bedding News Now and Home News Now, I hear remarkable honesty. While every store and brand operates differently, several universal themes have surfaced: the customer is getting tougher to win over, but when they’re ready to spend money, they will; foot traffic in some cases might be down, but ticket size is up; and health- and wellness-centric messaging is key.
To understand how to sell a mattress today, we first have to understand what is actually going on inside the mind of the 2026 consumer.
The planned replacement cycle is dying
The age of a mattress alone doesn’t necessarily trigger a sale. Instead, replacement is reactive rather than proactive, triggered by events such as co-sleeping issues, moving homes, or back pain or noticeably broken mattresses.
Matt Walker, co-founder and president of direct-to-consumer, bed-in-a-box brand Lull Mattress, said: “There’s almost always a long window between ‘I should probably get a new mattress’ and actually buying one—we’re talking months, sometimes over a year. The thing that converts intent into action is usually external. A promotion, a move, hitting a frustration limit. We think a lot about how to be present at that moment when it finally fires, because the consumer is already ready—they just needed a reason.”
An analysis of Lull Mattresses’ review data, according to Yotpo, a cloud-based e-commerce retention and marketing platform, analyzed 1,726 reviews. Back pain or pain-related language appeared in approximately one in six reviews, partner or spouse mentions were in 7.7%, moving in 2.6%, and the word “finally” in 1.4% of reviews.
“The tolerance window is real, predictable and remarkably consistent…” Walker added. “If you want to understand when a consumer is about to buy a mattress, watch for those life moments more than any promotional calendar.”
Robert Pagano, co-founder of Sleepline, a mattress review website based in Las Vegas, also noted that consumers are hanging on to their mattresses for longer than before.
“Usually when they decide to upgrade it’s because there’s some type of crisis that’s hard to ignore: back pain, sagging, etc.,” he said.
Pagano also observed that new technologies don’t drive replacement demand.
“People who have the budget for it are splurging on smart mattress pads and cooling systems like Chilipad and Eight Sleep. These ‘extras’ are where we’re seeing consumers really adapt to new sleep technology rather than the mattresses themselves.”
Consumer-facing messaging shifts from price to wellness
Because core mattress gadgets don’t force an immediate replacement, the industry narrative is pivoting. Manufacturers and retailers I’ve spoken with have said that shoppers are increasingly motivated by the health benefits of sleep.
Royal-Pedic, a manufacturer of luxury mattresses since 1946, shared that today’s shoppers are seeking the wellness benefits of sleep. A statement from the company said: “Consumers are increasingly recognizing that investing in a superior mattress is an investment in their health, comfort and quality of life.”
Jeff Giagnocavo, co-owner of Gardner’s Mattress and More in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, focuses on wellness messaging instead of price when promoting his products and store. He said that the independent channel “desperately” needs to give up trying to compete on price, particularly when retailers like Amazon, Wayfair and Costco will win almost every time. Instead, he and his team can offer something more valuable: better sleep.
“We are a solutions place, we’re a trusted place, we’re a resource place to fix your problems related to sleep, related to pain, related to health,” Giagnocavo added.
The trust deficit
While more consumers pursue better sleep, and by extension, better overall health, they’ve become more knowledgeable than ever, often coming into brick-and-mortar stores with their minds nearly made up. However, despite the best intentions, they are often navigating a sea of misinformation.
“Consumers have become genuinely comfortable making a $1,000+ purchase online without ever touching the product — that trust shift has compressed the sales cycle significantly compared to even a decade ago,” Walker said. “They’re spending weeks reading reviews, watching comparison videos and going deep on Reddit threads. The research is real and thorough.”
The problem, Walker explained, is the information environment they are navigating: “A lot of what passes for unbiased review content online is actually affiliate marketing dressed up as journalism. The highest-rated mattress on many of these sites isn’t the best mattress—it’s the one paying the highest commission…by the time someone realizes they’re on an affiliate site, they’ve already formed an opinion. In our view, that’s a long way from what the FTC’s ‘clear and conspicuous’ standard actually requires.”
This dynamic impacts brand discovery. Pointing to Lull’s own search data, Walker noted:
“Over 90% of our organic search traffic is branded—people already searching for Lull by name. They’ve been through the affiliate layer, formed an opinion somewhere else, and are now using Google to validate it. The discovery phase— ‘best mattress’ searches with tens of thousands of monthly impressions—is where we’re competing at position 14, behind sites whose rankings reflect commission rates more than editorial integrity. Consumers think they’re doing their homework. In many cases, they’re being funneled toward whoever paid to be recommended.”
Walker added that those practices erode trust in the whole category.
For retailers, this creates a new challenge. Winning the mattress sale is no longer just about convincing consumers they need better sleep, it’s about earning their trust in a crowded information environment. If the replacement cycle is no longer a reliable driver of demand, and price alone isn’t enough to win, retailers must find new ways to connect with shoppers.
Next week, in part two of this column, I’ll examine how retailers are doing exactly that, and winning the mattress sale in 2026.
