By Craig Patterson

The innovative ‘mattress-in-a-box’ concept is relatively new to Canada, and already several brands are available both online as well as in brick-and-mortar stores. Sleep Country Canada is the latest retailer to introduce such a mattress to the market, and it’s the second mattress-in-a-box brand that the retailer has launched in the past year or so.

Sleep Country Canada has just announced that it was partnering with UK-based Simba to exclusively carry the premium 'Hybrid®' mattress-in-a-box brand, which has sold more than 150,000 mattresses across Europe, with more than 30,000 five-star customer reviews. It’s a remarkable feat, considering that Simba only launched in February of 2016 — the company was co-founded by James Cox and Steve Reid alongside the McClements family, with its head office located in London. Prices appear to be a bit higher than some of its competitors — a queen-sized Simba mattress is priced at about $1,400, compared to $850 for the same-sized mattress that retails through popular Canadian mattress-in-a-box Endy.

Simba says that it uses cutting-edge materials, body profiling data and technology to “reinvent the sleep sector” and it appears to be working — the company has seen a staggering 350% year-over-year growth, which it attributes to having strong direct-to-consumer e-commerce as well as partnerships with important retailers such as John Lewis in the UK.

Stewart Schaefer, Chief Business Development Officer at Sleep Country Canada said, “Simba's unique Hybrid® mattress in a box, combines responsive memory foam with the support of 2,500 patented conical pocket springs and is a great complementary product to our existing mattress-in-a-box online offering, Bloom.

Mr. Schaefer is referring to the ‘Bloom’ mattress that Sleep Country Canada launched last year in its stores. Sleep Country Canada now boasts more than 250 stores across Canada and it’s growing quickly. The retailer’s game-plan is to open stores in many of Canada’s major malls, following the demise of its biggest competitor, Sears Canada. Sleep Country Canada is looking to continue to dominate the mattress retail market in this country, though it has some strong competitors both domestically as well as from abroad.

Inside Canada's 1st Casper store at Toronto's CF Sherway Gardens. PHoto: Craig Patterson

Casper, which opened its first standalone Canadian store at Toronto’s CF Sherway Gardens last month, is rapidly growing its Canadian business to eventually include multiple storefronts as well as a new Canadian head-office and manufacturing facility. Casper was founded as an online retailer in 2014, and is backed by celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Adam Levine and Ashton Kutcher.

Canadian mattress-in-a-box brand Endy, which will be launching a marketing initiative this month that we’ll be reporting on, is another competitor that also boasts exceptionally high ratings from its customers. Various other brands continue to enter the market, such as Leesa and Tuft & Needle, with more brands seemingly coming online every week. There’s even now a plant-based mattress called Haven Mattress Company, based in Kelowna.

Craig Patterson, now based in Toronto, is the founder and Editor-in-Chief Retail Insider. He's also a retail and real estate consultant, retail tour guide and public speaker.

Follow him on Twitter @RetailInsider_, LinkedIn at Craig Patterson, or email him at: craig@retail-insider.com.

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