ISPA’s Rogers says research is good news for consumers who benefit from a new mattress.
The actual mattress replacement cycle, a metric closely watched in the industry, has dropped from a mean of nine years in 2020 to 8.3 years in 2022.
In 2016, the actual replacement cycle was at 8.9 years.
The latest round of research conducted by the Better Sleep Council found that the expected replacement cycle — how long consumers expect to keep a new mattress — has remained relatively stable since 2016, when it was 9.4 years. In 2020, that figure rose to 9.5 years, but it edged down to 9.4 years in 2022.
The drop in the actual mattress replacement cycle is good news for consumers, according to Mary Helen Rogers, vice president of marketing and communications for the International Sleep Products Association. The BSC leads consumer research and education for ISPA.
“Too many consumers are sleeping on too-old mattresses and would get a better night of sleep on a new mattress,” she says.
“Today’s mattresses feature a variety of comfort and technology innovations that are designed to provide a great night of sleep,” Rogers continues. “These beds are a better choice for the many consumers who have kept their mattress for a decade or more.”
The fact that the actual mattress replacement cycle is now more than a year less than the expected replacement cycle is also good news, she says.
“This indicates that the BSC’s and industry’s messages about the need for consumers to evaluate the comfort and support of their current mattress are resonating in the marketplace,” she says.
The new research also finds that consumers’ expected and actual replacement cycles differ based on age, gender, family and whether they live in urban or rural areas.
In general, younger consumers have shorter expected and actual replacement cycles than older consumers.
For example, adult Gen Z shoppers (ages 18-24 in 2022), expect to keep a new quality mattress for seven years, but say they had their previous mattress for 6.1 years before they replaced it.
The situation is similar for millennials (ages 25-40). Their expected mattress replacement time is 7.3 years, but they had their previous mattress for just 5.7 years.
Gen X consumers (ages 41-55) have a much longer expected mattress replacement time than younger consumers — 9.4 years — but said they had their previous mattress for 8.4 years.
The longest mattress replacement times belong to boomers (ages 56-76). They said they would expect to keep a new mattress for 12.4 years, and they kept their previous mattress for 12.3 years before they replaced it with their current mattress.
By gender, men have shorter expected and actual mattress replacement times (8.5 years and 7.6 years, respectively) than women, who expect a mattress to last for 10.3 years, and had their previous mattress for 9.2 years before replacing it.
Families with children at home have much shorter expected and actual mattress replacement times than families with no children.
And consumers living in rural areas have longer expected and actual mattress replacement times than consumers living in urban or suburban areas.
“These age, gender, family and metro status differences are important factors for mattress marketers to address in their work,” Rogers says. “The demographic differences, in particular, are striking.
“It will be interesting to see if younger consumers continue to replace their mattresses at a much faster rate than older consumers as they age — or if their mattress replacement practices will come to more closely resemble the practices of boomers today.”
