Leggett & Platt has sparked an industrywide discussion about the safety of imported mattresses sold at Amazon and other retailers.
The issue represents a challenge for Amazon, whose continuing gains in the mattress category have shown no signs of slowing down.
Flammability testing of 24 imported mattresses, conducted on behalf of L&P, found widespread failures of the federal mattress flammability standard. The company recently went public with those test results, issuing a strongly worded press release that puts the safety issue in the spotlight. The International Sleep Products Association quickly voiced its support for L&P’s actions.
“We are notifying the industry of this issue,” Karl Glassman, L&P’s CEO, told Bedding News Now.
The industry is not the only group put on notice; those FR test results were also submitted to the Consumer Products Safety Commission, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of products sold in the United States.
L&P is calling on the CPSC to be more aggressive in identifying mattresses that fail the flammability standard and recalling them from the market, Glassman said.
He said that many consumers are unknowingly sleeping on imported mattresses that have a high probability of failing the FR standard and could quickly reach dangerous heat levels, endangering lives. Many of those mattresses are in children’s bedrooms, Glassman added.
Imported mattresses pose a significant safety risk to consumers, one that is growing as those imports continue to gain market share, L&P says.
Over the past decade, imported mattresses have risen from about 10% of the market in units to more than 40% of the units last year, Glassman said.
L&P is raising this issue as a good steward for the mattress industry, he said. “All the U.S. industry is asking for is a level playing field,” Glassman said. “Hold importers to the same standards U.S. manufacturers are held to and we are happy to compete.”
On the heels of L&P’s announcement, ISPA issued its own statement, saying that it “stands with our member companies in raising concerns about unsafe, non-compliant mattresses entering the U.S. market.”
ISPA said that L&P’s flammability testing of imported mattresses “underscores that too many imported mattresses sold online fail to meet the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s flammability standards, putting American consumers at risk.”
Compliance with the CPSC standards “is non-negotiable,” ISPA said. “Mattresses that burn rapidly or fail flammability testing have no place in American homes.”
Glassman said that flammability testing conducted on L&P’s behalf at Element Materials Technology, an independent, CPSC-approved laboratory for mattress flammability testing, found that seven of eight imported mattresses tested failed the federal flammability standard.
The imported mattresses tested had an average retail listing price of $233 – about half the wholesale price of an average mattress sold by U.S. manufacturers. The tested models had high Amazon search rankings and were almost all sold on Amazon by third-party sellers, L&P said.
The test results were submitted to the CPSC last year.
L&P said those test results “raise serious concerns that there may be widespread non-compliance of low-cost, imported mattresses sold online in the U.S. An estimated 400,000 mattresses from models that failed 1633 flammability testing were sold on Amazon between 2024 and mid-2025, according to third-party market intelligence data,” L&P said.
In addition to urging stronger action by the CPSC, L&P is also calling for consumers to be more knowledgeable about the mattresses they are buying.
“Leggett & Platt encourages consumers to research mattresses carefully,” the company said. “Before making a purchase, consumers should obtain proof from the retailer or manufacturer that the mattress model in question complies with the CPSC’s rigorous flammability standards.”
Glassman said talks with consumers about mattress flammability are “conversations that should be had.”
