Jeff Chapin, Casper\'s chief product officer, scattered 30 prototype pillows in his bedroom.
One of them is the final result of a design and testing process that lasted more than a year, and Casper hopes this is the holy grail of bedding: a pillow that is perfect for all sleepers.
There are no variants of the side or back sleepers.
There is no firm choice.
Buyers who like specific materials
Down, latex, cotton, wool, or buckwheat --
Bad luck.
Each Casper pillow is filled with the same synthetic fiber, filled to the same density, and wrapped in an interchanged white percale lid.
Pillows are an experiment in the bedding industry where products are becoming more and more professional and complex, and for Casper it\'s a start
Up for selling mail-
Order mattress.
19 months ago, Casper began selling its first product. model memory-and latex-foam mattress.
The price of the Casper mattress ranges from $500 for twins to $950 for kings, including shipping costs, and is only sold online, designed to appeal to those who hate mattress shopping.
\"Our prediction is that we will be selling hundreds of cars in the first few months,\" said Casper\'s chief executive Philip Kreem . \".
\"We sold it in a few days.
\"The mattress is simple, Instagram-
Friendly packaging and extensive marketing resonated.
Sales reached $1 million in the first month and recently totaled more than $100 million.
Now Casper is ready to test whether its early success will translate into other product categories.
It will start selling new pillows and sheets on Tuesday.
\"We never saw ourselves as a mattress company . \"Krim said.
\"We always talk about it in the context of a wider range of sleep.
The five founders of Casper, all in their 20 s or 30 s, are not the first online mattress retailer to tailor for millennials, but its success has helped push the market up, it has now become a frenzy.
Shoppers have at least a dozen brands to choose from and new entrants appear every month.
Saatva, which opened in 2011, expects sales to double this year to $85 million, while Leesa, one of the latest arrivals that started shipping late last year, said, sales are expected to reach $30 million this year.
Tuft & Needle, another popular brand, said its sales will double this year to at least $40 million.
Investors are investing money in these new businesses, sometimes referred to as \"Mattress 2 \". 0” companies.
Casper raised nearly $70 million from investors at a $0. 55 billion valuation.
In contrast, the mattress company, the industry\'s largest professional retailer, has annual sales of $2.
3 billion last year;
Its market value is $1. 6 billion. “It’s a modern-
\"The Gold Rush of the day,\" said David Perry, executive editor of the trade publication Furniture Today.
How the gold rush is formed remains to be seen. Mattress-
Industry veterans pointed out that Casper\'s market share of $14 billion is still very small --a-year market —and its long-
The outlook for tenure is difficult to judge.
\"It\'s very fashionable to say Casper is an industry breaker ,\"Perry said.
\"What I want to say is that they are a potential vandal.
Comfort is very subjective.
There are many benefits to trying out a mattress in a store.
The idea that Casper beds are perfect for everyone is not in line with industry experience, but it is clear that this message resonates with consumers.
Casper started working on pillows the day after shipping the first mattress.
Based in New York City, the company started research by purchasing dozens of wells
Check the pillows, take them apart and experiment with their ingredients.
Early user tests showed a surprise: the material that worked well for Casper\'s mattress-the foam was blown up.
Casper\'s experiments included some departures, such as \"pillow pillows \"--
Dozens of small pillows stuffed in shellsand a puzzle-
Adjustable pillows like configurable layers stacked.
But the design of Casper is quite traditional.
Visually, the only unusual feature of the pillow is its double
Layer structure: a thick, washable outer layer revolves around an elastic inner core, a structure designed to prevent excessive flattening of pillows.
Like the mattress in Casper, the pillow has only one model, the standard price is $75, and the King price is $85.
The company initially considered making some changes, but user tests showed that most people tend to feel the same way.
\"A lot of products are on sale, \'Are you a front sleeper, or a back sleeper or a side sleeper?
Luke sheven, chief creative officer at Casper, said.
\"But all the data shows that everyone is acting.
You may fall asleep in one position, but you will not stay there.
\"Simplicity is at the heart of Casper\'s sales campaign.
People who buy bedding are overwhelmed by information, most of which are technical information that cannot be understood, but in the end, most people will be satisfied with their health --
This is the most basic, the company believes.
This is a sales method that, like product design, focuses on consumer psychology.
This method works well in the mattress field.
Barry Schwartz said: \"When the goods are extremely complex and you feel like you have expertise as a consumer and you don\'t have it, a single choice can be attractive, \"A professor of psychology at Swarthmore, author of the book\" Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. ”But Mr.
Schwartz wonders how far this number is. model-fits-
All methods can be extended.
Some people have a strong feel for sheets and pillows, but these things are not the kind of things that were once worrying and expensivea-
Buy ten years as a mattress.
\"There are quite good studies that show that the right answer to the question of\" how many choices \"is not an option,\" he said . \".
\"I think it\'s a fashion and I don\'t think it will last.
However, some new bedding companies have become a fanatic brand. Word-of-
Mouth drives their sales, happy shoppers chatter on social media and comment on their experiences on the site.
When Casper creates a new product test project Casper Labs, it expects hundreds of customers to register.
More than 15,000 people.
Derek Hells, founder of the news and comment site Sleepopolis, said that every big company has attracted a wave of fanatic followers.
\"It\'s fun to think of people being loyal to the mattress brand because it\'s something you buy every 8 to 12 years, but the response is very strong,\" he said . \".
\"Every company is thinking about pillows, sheets or foundations, and I think their top customers are going to be very eager when they start rolling out new products.
The founders of Casper admit that they really don\'t know what the pillows and sheets will bring.
\"When we placed the initial order for pillows and sheets, we joked that the only thing we were sure of was that the quantity we ordered was wrong ,\"Krim said.
\"We just don\'t know in which direction we\'re going to be wrong.