“Now we know why we seem to have hit peak mattress along Westheimer,” declares Christopher Andrews, after producing and walking through a series of maps intended to shed light on where in the Houston area and why Mattress Firm has opened 92 separate showrooms, and is working on another 19 for the lower-priced “competitor” the same company operates, Mattress Pro. The highlights from his analysis are the 2 maps excerpted here, showing (at top) the correlation between areas with lots of apartments (dark green) and the stores (red for Mattress Firm, blue for the usually outside-the-Loop Mattress Pro); and (above) a Learning from Las Vegas-style diagram of Houston’s very own Mattress Corridor.
Houston may be the sleepy chain store’s hometown, but it’s not the only beneficiary of all that new retail padding; in the 14 weeks ending February 3rd alone, Mattress Firm opened or acquired 118 new U.S. stores.
- Mattress Manifest Destiny in Houston: Mattress Firm and Mattress Pro [Not of It]
- Previously on Swamplot: Now It’s 2 Mattress Stores Moving in Right Next To Each Other at the Corner of Westheimer and Montrose; What’s Arriving Now at the Sleepy Corner of Westheimer and Montrose; Sorry, No Mattress Store Can Sneak into Highland Village Without Somebody Noticing
Maps: Christopher Andrews
There’s a better Census dataset for this. Query for geographic mobility or for the past year. When people move, that’s when they buy new furniture. Bonus points if you can break it out by age or income…because when really young or really poor folks move, they’re often too poor to buy all-new furniture, rely on hand-me-downs, or [gasp] even buy used stuff.
Have fun.
It is interesting to look at the metastasization of these ugly stores on a map. The goal must be to place these eyesores everywhere. I never see anyone in these stores. I wonder if the salespeople have quotas? How many mattresses a month are required to be sold by each eyesore?
I wonder if Mattress Firm/Pro geographically correlate with CVS/Walgreens stores, i.e. the drug sellers who provide customers with the means (Ambien, Lunesta) to enjoy a full and long-lasting experience on their newly purchased mattresses.
It seemed like way too many mattress stores until I remembered that ad I keep hearing that reveals that you add 140 pounds of sweat and bacteria to your mattress each year. After 2 years, you could build a whole new YOU out of the skin, hair, and material you’ve shed into your mattress.
That’s why I’m relieved that I have three Mattress Firm stores within walking distance of my townhouse!
Theses stores are growing faster than Starbucks SMH. If you look at the map there a few spots where there are 2 or more stores that look like they are 3 to 5 blks apart max 3/4 of these stores will be gone in 3 to 5 yrs
Katy Anders: So in a mere 10 years or so, your mattress will begin to rival your auto in weight! Maybe there is something missing from the sales pitch?
@Katy….and if you believe that, how much would that mattress weigh after 8 years (when they say you should buy a new one)….it would weight over 1120 pounds….talk about false advertising and people actually believe it?
@Larry: When I think of a prescription medicine that would let me to enjoy a full and long-lasting experience on my newly purchased mattress, it would not be Ambien or Lunesta…
RE: this “you mattress gains 140 lbs in sweat and dead skin” claim. Am i the only one that has a mattress cover? If you’re adding sweat and dead skin to your mattress youre doing it wrong.
Mattress Firm (ticker MFRM) stock is up 15% over the last month (and 44% over the last year), courtesy of swamplot articles and comments ;)
It is not just Mattress Firm polluting the landscape with these stores. Mattress 1 is right behind them opening locations left and right. I would think they would have a hard time giving away mattresses for free after reading some of their yelp reviews.
This guy should rework the map to include Mattress One and Mattress Overstock stores, which are also densifying in the neighborhood.
Is there a recycling plan in place to compensate for all of these new mattresses?
Missing a Mattress Firm thats been open longer than and within a mile of a Mattress Pro. Goes to the left of the second blue dot down left of center.
Mattress Firm
6519 FM 1488
Magnolia, TX 77354
midtownmiss: We are going to settle for some very bouncy landfills.
Niche, your point is well taken, but even with the data you suggest, you’d have to be careful. You hear anecdotal documentation of low-income families moving every 6 months to chase free/reduced rent move-in deals in Class B/C apartment complexes. If Census statistics reflect that, you’ll have a lot of noise to weed out of that data – correlation with income data would be essential, since I sincerely doubt those lower-income folks are buying new mattresses with any frequency.
Interesting to note that, even with the high concentration of multifamily, Greenspoint / Spring has nary a mattress provider, at least of these two brands of purveyors.
I notice a significant hole in the Mattress Firm takeover strategy, and it appears to be the minority wards east of 59/69. So not only is Houston a food desert but a sleep desert. Give Mattress Mac his due; his flagship store is still along the North Freeway near Northline.
Operating all those stores just isn’t all that profitable. Like someone said, you rarely see any customers there.
For the quarter ended Feb. 3rd, 2015, they had net sales of $598 million, and operating income of only 6.6 million. That’s operating 2094 stores! So each store only generated $3151 profit in 3 months, or barely $262 in profits per week, per store. I’ll add to that that their cash on hand is only $13.5 million, not much, should something go wrong.
Source is BusinessWire, March 19th, 2015.
@O’Grady – a sleep desert. lol.
TheNiche and Local Planner, thanks for the thoughts. I was just picking data that I thought might help at least show some broad trends. As I said in my original post, it’s not a surprise why these mattress stores are locating where they are: there’s lots of younger people with well-paying jobs that are moving here for jobs. I just wanted to see what the larger demographic trends were.
JonB, if you want to get me that data I can add the addresses for all the Mattress One locations! For some reason I haven’t noticed the Mattress One locations when I’ve been around town. But after looking at their location map, they’re everywhere too. Maybe I can chip away at it…
I’d like to see a map showing every mattress store in Houston. In the Greater East End, there seems to be one in every other block.
I think these spots are fronts for illegal trafficking of ______ (something that fits inside mattresses)
@ Planner: Yeah, I already mentioned that issue about income and age.
You’re correct that there exists a consistent and very high turnover rate among a particular cohort of low-income households that chase concessions — although it’s the Class C and D complexes where it happens most frequently and becomes a constant churning. That’s where multifamily operators are the most willing to waive application fees, security deposits, and are most inconsistent about running credit/background checks. It only seems to impact Class B assets if there’s an owner that thinks that they can temporarily improve their financials right before they sell the asset by filling it up with crappy tenants whose problems will get inherited by the next owner. That’s a lot less common, but it happens occasionally.
Here’s all of your Mattress Firm, Mattress Pro and Mattress 1 One locations on one map. http://www.cdandrews.com/2015/04/mattress-manifest-destiny-part-2.html