Online bedding retailer Casper launched in 2014 in the US cities of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco selling directly to consumers.

The company took a direct-to-consumer model and applied it to the mattress industry. Casper developed a sleek box that would be delivered to the customer’s doorstep containing the mattress they ordered online.

The brand also made an impact on social media, releasing a series of creative Snapchat and Instagram stories. The business has changed the way that consumers expect to buy a mattress.

It was recently named one of the 50 most innovative companies by Fast Company magazine in its annual list. Casper came in No. 36 overall among market movers such as No. 1 Amazon, followed by Google, Uber and Apple.

Co-founder and chief operating officer Neil Parikh said Casper’s competition is “the corner store” with 90% of mattresses still being purchased in person, even as he compared the mattress shopping experience to that of buying a used car.

Disrupting the traditional mattress selling and buying scenario, the three-year-old company has launched four new products (the most recent, a dog bed) and last year generated an estimated USD200 million in sales. The 100,000-plus “Casper unboxing” videos on YouTube is just one reason why Fast Company magazine described Casper as the “cult mattress company.”

Outside-of-the-box marketing ideas like recreational vehicles (RVs) with Casper sleep rooms travelling around the US, which was inspired by Japanese sleep capsules, not only has gotten people talking about sleep but also seeing it as interesting.

“It’s very much about fun,” Parikh told Fast Company. “Because forever we’ve been trained that sleep is a negative thing. ‘I’m cool because I only sleep four hours a night,’ or you know, ‘My parents punish me, and therefore I have to go to bed.’ We’re trying to unwind that psychology.”

 

Parikh added that the competitive advantage he seeks is the ability to deliver the “amazing experience over and over and over again” and cited that caring, values and rigorous training are the keys.

From Furniture Today