Casper to open 200 stores across North America

Dive Brief:

Casper on Wednesday announced plans to open 200 stores across North America, the company said in an email to Retail Dive.
Among them are 18 pop-ups the company will make permanent, while others will be in top malls, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
Casper in February opened its first stand-alone store in New York, adding to a series of pop-up stores in Los Angeles, New York and London , as well as partnerships with Target and Nordstrom, replacing an earlier one with West Elm that has since flipped to Leesa. The company's expansion extends to Canada, beginning with two stores in Toronto and a new headquarters there this year.

Dive Insight:

Casper is deploying its recent funding (led by partner Target last year) to open physical stores and experiences in an attempt to bring its sleep products to a larger breadth of consumers. Its Mercer Street location in New York City even has a lounge and series of sleeping nooks designed to promote relaxation and napping.

Founded in 2014, the company has, along with rival mattress startups, upended the sector and sent legacy retailers like department stores and discounters scrambling. Stalwart retailer Mattress Firm is now reportedly contemplating a bankruptcy filing, looking for a way to get out from under expensive store leases and shutter underperforming locations.

The startups, which include not just Casper and Leesa but also Purple, Tuft & Needle and others, have eschewed humdrum showrooms and convoluted pricing in favor of keeping their "mattress-fits-most" offers, which feature basic bed sizes at a single price, paired with long try-out times and free returns. Casper has plenty of competition to contend with elsewhere, too, including not just traditional players but also mass merchants looking to increase their furniture and home goods sales.

Amazon, for example, launched two furniture brands in November. And earlier this year, Walmart announced a new in-house mattress brand, Allswell, as part of a revamped online home destination effort.

But Casper is breaking out, with locations that include home-like spaces and sales through established retailers to bolster its initial pure-play e-commerce. This move — which goes far beyond the pop-ups it has opened in the past — is a testament to Casper's ambitious intentions in the mattress space.