According to investment bank and financial services firm Piper Sandler, November and December 2023 were the two best months of the year for mattress sales. This trend did not continue at the beginning of 2024, when the Minneapolis-based company released its January Mattress Retail Survey, noting a sales downturn of “12% on a mean/median basis.”
However, based on Piper Sandler’s recently released February Mattress Retail Survey, it seems that the January downturn was not part of a larger trend but rather a confluence of factors including a lack of traffic-driving holidays, typical seasonal slowness and poor weather conditions across the United States. According to Piper Sandler, February 2024 “showed the strongest sales growth in two years with sales up 0.8/2.0% year-over-year on a mean/median” basis. This made it the best sales performance since February 2022.
The report also contains more good news for the industry, with Piper Sandler maintaining its outlook that the industry is “bouncing along the bottom.” Sales are expected to continue stabilizing before reverting to “consistent, positive year-over-year growth.” Retailers surveyed by Piper Sandler were evenly split in their expectations for the first quarter of 2024, with half stating they thought there would be positive growth while the other half thought it would be negative. On a mean and a median basis, retailers “expect sales to be flat year over year.” According to the report, that would still be the best year-over-year performance since the fourth quarter of 2021.
Read the full report here. Read the February summary – President’s Day Sales Flattish, According to Piper Sandler.
