{"id":831,"date":"2013-10-15T16:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/mattress-blog\/?p=831"},"modified":"2013-12-23T13:55:28","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T21:55:28","slug":"is-mattress-innovation-really-valued-by-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/is-mattress-innovation-really-valued-by-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Do consumers really value mattress innovation?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In our Expert Q&A mattress forum<\/a>, we get a lot of questions from people looking to buy an exact replacement of a bed they already have.\u00a0 Clearly, these people are happy with what they have, and they figure they’ll save some time and reduce their risk by simply buying the same thing again.\u00a0 It’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of mattress shopping.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, these people are typically out of luck.\u00a0 Most mattress companies change model names every year or more, and overhaul product lines completely every 2-3 years.\u00a0 So, assuming you’ve had your mattress for at least a few years, it will likely be impossible to find that exact mattress, even by another name.<\/p>\n

This got us wondering though, what if mattress companies didn’t operate this way?\u00a0 What if mattress models from 10 years ago were still available?\u00a0 Would people want them?<\/p>\n

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The Question<\/strong><\/p>\n

If it were available, would you buy a new mattress that’s an exact replica of your current one?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We asked over 1,000 mattress shoppers this question.\u00a0 Here’s what they said:<\/p>\n

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People That Would<\/span> Want Their Current Mattress<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly 1 in 4 mattress shoppers (23%) would buy a replica of the mattress they already have.\u00a0 While not a huge portion of the market, it seems big when you consider that virtually none of these people are able to do this today.\u00a0 This points to an opportunity to create more continuity in mattress product lines over time, to better serve the replacement needs of this portion of the market.<\/p>\n

It’s also worth adding that amongst this group, 53% of people have had their current mattress more than 8 years, and 74% have had it at least 4 years.\u00a0 One of the biggest unknowns when buying a new mattress is how well it will hold up over time.\u00a0 So it’s not surprising that most of the people interested in buying a replica of their current mattress have had that mattress for a while.\u00a0 This has given them enough time to be sure that the mattress will live up to their expectations regarding durability.<\/p>\n

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People That Would NOT<\/span> Want Their Current Mattress<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall, 77% of people that said they would NOT want a replica of their current mattress.\u00a0 It might be tempting to assume that this is because most people want the latest and greatest in mattress ‘technology.’\u00a0 In reality though, the reason was much more surprising (at least to us) — most of them just weren’t very happy with their previous purchase:<\/p>\n

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Of the people that would NOT want a replica of their current mattress, 28% said it’s because their current mattress isn’t good for them, and 26% said it’s because their current mattress didn’t last.\u00a0 Adding these two groups together, this means that 54% said that the reason they wouldn’t want to purchase their current mattress again is because they weren’t satisfied enough with it.\u00a0 Another 14% say they want something different, some of whom might also regret the choice they made last time.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, only 32% of these respondents indicated a desire for something newer or better than their current mattress.<\/em>\u00a0 This group — just 24% of all respondents — is the only group that expressed a focused interest in benefiting from the latest innovations that the mattress industry has to offer.
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Do These Results Point to a Bigger Consumer Satisfaction Issue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While gauging consumer satisfaction was not the intent of this survey, it may have been an unintended outcome.\u00a0 For people that would NOT purchase their current mattress, over half <\/em>say it’s because they made a bad choice last time.\u00a0 Looking at this group as a portion of all survey respondents, this would suggest an overall satisfaction level of below 60%<\/em>.\u00a0 <\/em>It can also be noted that the dis-satisfaction stems almost equally between product longevity (ie, how long it lasted) and product fit (ie, how good a match it was for them).\u00a0 Looking at this a different way, the opportunity for improving these numbers is split equally between both manufacturers (product longevity) and retailers (product fit).<\/p>\n

In past consumer surveys about satisfaction, the reported satisfaction levels are typically much higher.\u00a0 However, in those cases, the question usually gets phrased in a more general sense like “How satisfied are you with your mattress?,” with choices like “Extremely,” “Moderately,” etc.\u00a0 By contrast, the survey we did this time takes a different (and perhaps more useful) approach to measuring satisfaction by asking “Are you satisfied enough with your current mattress to purchase it again?”\u00a0 The results are certainly noteworthy, and merit further exploration.<\/p>\n

It’s also worth keeping in mind that there may be some selection bias in these responses, so it shouldn’t be assumed that these results are an exact representation of all mattress shoppers today.\u00a0 That said, this survey was conducted randomly from visitors to GoodBed, a large audience that represents 5-10% of active mattress shoppers at any given time.\u00a0 So, it would be surprising if these results are not at least directionally accurate.<\/p>\n

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Follow-Up
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In an upcoming follow-up post<\/a>, we will examine the question of why such a small overall number of mattress shoppers (24%) expressed a focus on buying something newer or better in their next mattress.<\/p>\n

Separately, we will be doing some additional research on the issue of consumer satisfaction, to see if we can cross-calibrate these results against other questions that get at this same issue from a different direction.<\/p>\n

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TweetIn our Expert Q&A mattress forum, we get a lot of questions from people looking to buy an exact replacement of a bed they already have.\u00a0 Clearly, these people are happy with what they have, and they figure they’ll save some time and reduce their risk by simply buying the same thing again.\u00a0 It’s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodbed.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}