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1800mattress plans 40 D.C. stores

By David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 19, 2008

WASHINGTON — Tele-retailer 1800mattress.com says it plans to open about 40 stores in this city and its suburbs, and has hired mattress industry veteran Ken Mazda to lead the effort.

Mazda, best known for building Nationwide Discount Sleep Centers into a 60-store mattress retailer in the Philadelphia market, has been named vice president of business development, new markets.

Mazda sold Nationwide in 1999 to Mattress Giant. Since then, he has participated in other retail ventures including franchise development.

1800mattress.com already has three showrooms and a warehouse in the Washington region. The company said it has signed leases to open another five stores in the next 60 days, and expects to reach the 40 store mark within 18 months.

The retailer's current total store count is 44, so the Washington expansion will mean significant growth.

“The mattress retailing dynamics of the Washington market, particularly in some of its Maryland and northern Virginia suburbs, are changing dramatically and there is an exciting opportunity for us to expand market share in a smart way,” said Mazda.

“Ken has brought a fresh and creative approach to expanding our retail operations outside of New York and we are expecting rapid growth in this market,” said Joe Vicens, 1800mattress.com's executive vice president of national sales.

“Mattress retailing is not like operating a Starbucks or CVS where you need a retail location every few feet for the consumer to stumble into,” he added. “Increasingly the mattress purchasing process is multi-faceted. A customer typically calls our 800 number or searches the Internet or maybe chats online with one of our trained bedding consultants. They use the retail showroom if they want to see and touch the mattress only.”

Vicens said that this strategy enables the retailer to garner more market share with less retail exposure than other mattress chains.

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