Casper's success online fuels Mattress 2.0 copycats

Jeff Chapin, the chief product officer at Casper, has 30 prototype pillows strewn around his bedroom. One of them, the end result of a design and testing process that lasted more than a year, is what Casper hopes will be the holy grail of bedding: one pillow, perfect for all sleepers.

There is no variant for side or back sleepers. No choice of firmness. Buyers who prefer specific materials are out of luck. Every Casper pillow is filled with the same synthetic fibres, stuffed to the same density and wrapped in an interchangeable white percale cover. The pillow is an experiment for both the bedding industry, where products have grown ever more specialised and complex, and for Casper, a startup that sells mail-order mattresses.

Nineteen months ago, Casper began selling its first product, a single-model memory- and latex-foam mattress. Priced from $500 for a twin to $950 for a king, shipping included, and sold only online, the Casper mattress was meant to appeal to those who hate mattress shopping.

“Our forecast was that we would sell a couple hundred within the first few months,” said Philip Krim, Casper’s chief executive. “We sold that within days.” Sales reached $1 million in the first month, and recently topped a cumulative $100 million. Now, Casper is poised to test whether its early success will translate to other product categories. Recently it began selling the new pillow, as well as sheets.

Casper, whose five founders are all in their 20s or 30s, was not the first online mattress retailer with a pitch tailored for millennials, but its success helped supercharge the market, which has now become something of a frenzy.

Investors are pouring money into the new ventures, which are sometimes referred to ‘Mattress 2.0’ companies. Casper has raised nearly $70 million from investors at a valuation of $550 million. “It’s a modern-day gold rush,” said David Perry, the executive editor of Furniture Today, a trade publication. How that gold rush pans out remains to be seen. Mattress-industry veterans point out that Casper’s share is still a tiny sliver of a $14 billion-a-year market — and its long-term prospects are hard to judge.

“It’s trendy to say Casper is an industry disrupter,” Perry said. “What I would say is that they’re a potential disrupter. Comfort is very subjective. There are many advantages to trying a mattress out in a store. The idea that the Casper bed is perfect for everyone doesn’t fit with what the industry experience has been, but clearly, that message is resonating with consumers.”