The new year got off to slow start for bedding retailers, with total delivered mattress sales declining in January by a mean of 6%, a survey says. Retailers now see only slight mattress gains in the first quarter of 2022, but are more bullish about growth prospects for the full year.
Piper Sandler’s January Mattress Retail Survey, which looks at retail performance at select retailers across the United States, found a sharp decline in unit sales, down by a mean of 25% in January over the same month in 2021. But the average unit price was up by a mean of 17% in January 2022 over January 2021.
The New York-based firm, which closely follows the performance of the mattress industry, said the January sales decline for mattresses sales, including foundations and adjustable bases, was the first year-over-year decline in 20 months.
“Sales trends appeared weakest at the low/middle price points,” Piper Sandler said. It added: “January was much worse than retailers expected from the beginning of the month.”
The survey forecasts that the sector will see some sales improvement for February and March when those numbers are tallied. Retailers now say they expect first quarter sales growth of a mean of 1.1%. That is a much weaker outlook than they had in early January, when they said they were expecting total sales growth of a mean of 7.1% in the first quarter.
For the full year, retailers now say they are expecting mattress sales growth of a mean of 8%, a much stronger growth rate than the retailers recorded in 2018 (up by a mean of 2%), 2019 (up by a mean of 4%), and 2020 (up by a mean of 2%), but far below the mean of 30% growth that mattress retailers reported for 2021
