Online retailers have accustomed shoppers to long exchange windows. Here’s how brick-and mortar retailers are responding.
Consumers have long driven the U.S. economy: Americans like to shop and, increasingly, strive to return a lot of what they buy.
Consumers returned a staggering $743 billion in merchandise to U.S. retailers in 2023, according to the New York-based National Retail Federation. As a percentage of sales, the return rate was 14.5%.
Most brick-and-mortar mattress retailers like to keep comfort return rates to the single digits. They’d like those rates to be zero, but in this less-than-ideal world, somewhere around 5% is a goal for many.
It’s becoming harder to hit that goal, some retailers say, since online sellers of all types made “no-hassle” returns a part of their business model. At the same time,
direct-to-consumer boxed bed brands promoted free returns and long return windows to get consumers comfortable with the idea of buying a mattress online. Return windows have stretched to 90 days, 100 days or 120 days. Several mattress sellers offer 365-day “trial periods.”
“Twenty years ago, we didn’t take back beds,” says Margaret Wright, owner of Mattress Store, a two-store chain with locations in Annapolis, Maryland, and Chester, Maryland. “Back then, you bought a bed and that was that. People didn’t even think of asking to return it. It just wasn’t done.”
Now, some shoppers walk in the door asking about comfort return policies.
“Unfortunately, many of the bigger companies have absolutely put the sense in people’s minds that they can keep products for lengthy periods of time and return them for full refunds,” says Chelsea Fox, co-owner of manufacturer-retailer Fox Mattress in Holly Hill, Florida, near Daytona Beach.
All this is changing how brick-and-mortar retailers structure and explain their return policies.
“We use (our size) to our advantage to explain that as a small business, we have a lot more invested in our customers and can’t simply afford to ‘throw’ something away by giving all the money back,” Fox says.
The Art of the Sale: Guiding Customers to the Perfect Mattress
Just to be clear: We’re talking about comfort returns or, as many retailers prefer to call them, comfort exchanges. That’s when customers take a mattress back to a retailer because they’re not happy with its feel or support. In this article, we’re not delving into warranty returns, or returns because of defects in the mattress. That’s another topic entirely.
Comfort returns are expensive for retailers because, unlike for warranty returns, many bedding manufacturers don’t take back and reimburse retailers for the cost of the mattress. There’s also the small but not insignificant cost of the time retailers spend dealing with the return process and helping shoppers select a new model.
The best way for brick-and-mortar retailers to keep comfort return rates low is to help shoppers choose the right mattress from the start — and that means training retail sales associates to ask the right questions and encourage proper rest-tests.
“We ask many questions about (shoppers’) sleeping preferences, history of previous mattresses, current medical issues, etc., and try to help guide them with our over five generations of mattress knowledge,” Fox says.
Technologies that map bodies and compile other relevant data can assist shoppers in choosing a bed. Mattress King finds Kingsdown’s BedMatch system helpful in directing shoppers to suitable mattresses.
“And (we) do not have our sales team on commission, so they are here to help our guests find the best night’s sleep within their budget versus being sold a product that may have a bigger commission or ‘kickback,’” says Tashina Recanati, manager/leader for Mattress King, which has two stores and a retail warehouse in Billings, Montana, and another store in Bozeman, Montana.
Educating consumers about the purpose of the bed, “which is comfort and to support good posture,” is an important part of the sales process at Mattress Store, Wright says.
“You want good posture standing and you want good posture lying down, and we can see if your body is in alignment when you’re lying down — if I can get you to lie there long enough,” she explains.
How long is long enough? Wright thinks about 10 minutes.
“That’s long enough for pressure points to build up,” she says. “I tell people all the time, ‘It’s like going to church or going to a football game and you’re sitting on that wooden pew or metal bench. It feels fine when you sit down, but after 10 minutes, you’re starting to roll up a newspaper to put on the seat.’” Mattress Store floors 40 models, giving shoppers plenty of choices.
Square Deal Mattress Factory, a family-owned manufacturer-retailer in Chico, California, spends a lot of time educating shoppers about mattresses and evaluating how supportive mattresses are during rest-tests.
“We’re such a tailored business, we spend a lot of time with our customers,” says Jessica Lash, secretary of the company. “We still have the brick-and-mortar showroom so they can try all the mattresses. We ask them several questions about how they sleep and then try to point them toward something that we know is going to fit their body and that they’ll find comfortable. Our experts can see where their body lies on it, and we give them an education on the mattresses to try to help them find the right mattress for them.”
Beyond the Sale: Strategies for Minimizing Returns
Cultivate Trust: The Power of Relationship-Based Sales
Rushing shoppers to buy a mattress contributes to them making rash — and sometimes wrong — decisions. In the long run, it can be more cost-effective to let customers walk away than push them into a sale and have them return the bed later.
Transparency is Key: Communicating Clear Return Policies
Today’s consumers crave information. If the shopper asks about comfort return policies early in the sales process, be honest but positive. For example: “If you’re unhappy with the feel of the bed after 30 days, you can return it for a $300 fee and choose a new bed. But we’re going to do our best today to find the right mattress for you.” At the sales desk, go over the comfort return details and hand customers the policy in writing. Post it clearly on your website, too. You might even want to have online shoppers check a box indicating they’ve read the policy before final purchase.
“We use (our policy) in marketing, talk about it during our sales presentation, again at the desk and it is printed on the bottom of our receipts,” Recanati says of Mattress King’s 120-day comfort return policy.
At Fox Mattress, “we have it listed on our brochures and a couple of signs around the showroom,” Fox says.
Sustainability Matters: The Environmental Impact of Mattress Returns
The infrastructure for mattress recycling is growing in the United States, but only four states — California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and, starting in 2025, Oregon — have statewide recycling programs. In other places, retailers may not have easy access to or cost-effective options for mattress recycling and, because of health concerns, fewer charities accept used mattresses than in the past. That means too many comfort returns end up in landfills.
Flexibility and Sustainability: The Benefits of Interchangeable Components
As a sustainability measure, Boulder, Colorado-based Williams Co. designs its mattresses so the top comfort layer can be replaced. Naturepedic, based in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, uses zippered covers to make it easy for consumers to change out comfort layers. Within 100 days of purchase, the bedding company will swap them for free; after that, customers can buy new layers. And Farmingdale, New York-based Bedgear’s M3 Performance mattress has an interchangeable, modular design that lets consumers adjust the firmness level of each side. These are just a few of the brands that make it easy for customers to alter the feel of their beds without returning the entire unit.
Of course, manufacturer-retailers like Fox Mattress and Square Deal have the benefit of being able to adjust any mattress in their own factories.
“We also have our factory attached to our showroom and it’s not unheard of in our business to see a customer out in the factory customizing their ‘perfect’ feel just for them,” Fox says.
Proactive Maintenance: Extending Mattress Lifespan
If you offer long comfort return windows — or just want to go above and beyond in terms of customer service — provide mattress flipping and turning services to help extend the life and comfort of customers’ mattresses. Mattress Store offers flipping and rotating, as does Square Deal, which encourages its customers to flip or rotate their new mattress every two weeks for the first two months. The retailer will then flip or turn customers’ mattresses whenever they request it.
It would be great if every customer loved their new mattress on Day 1 and for years to come. But providing well-thought-out comfort return policies can ensure every customer is satisfied on the second try.
Read more Selling Tips & Strategies.
Why Mattress Retailers Require a 30-Day Trial Before Comfort Returns
Many retailers require that customers keep their mattress for at least 30 days before making a comfort return.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, a sleeper may need time to adjust to the feel of a new mattress, especially if they’d slept on their previous mattress for many years or they’ve switched from one bedding construction to another, say, from innerspring to all-foam.
Second, many mattresses require a breaking-in period.
“We tell them that their new bed is going to be firmer than the one they tried in the store because it’s a brand-new bed and the one in the store has lots of people lying on it,” says Margaret Wright, owner of Mattress Store, a two-store chain with locations in Annapolis, Maryland, and Chester, Maryland. Requiring customers to keep the bed for 30 days gets “most of them through that ‘overreaction’ period,” she adds.
To make it clear, Mattress Store now puts that policy in writing.
Policies are well and good, but there are times when retailers should enable managers to make the rare exception.
Jessica Lash, secretary of Square Deal Mattress Factory, a manufacturer-retailer in Chico, California, recently had a pregnant customer who wanted to return a bed shortly after she bought it. The customer had chosen a firm model, thinking it would be good for her back, but her pregnancy turned her into a side sleeper, and she was having neck problems. Although she hadn’t kept the mattress for the month that Square Deal requests, the retailer made adjustments. “If somebody is in here in tears, we’re going to get their bed fixed immediately,” Lash says. “We stand behind our products and our customers. Since we are a small business and have that flexibility and hometown feel, we can be there for each individual person and their needs.”
