Mattress Firm Announces Bankruptcy, As Millennials Ditch Traditional Mattress Stores

It is official that yet another company is filing for bankruptcy and closing a slew of store locations. Mattress Firm has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and will close as many as 700 store locations. Mattress Firm is the largest specialty mattress retailer in the U.S. with around 3,400 stores.

Mattress Firm, similar to other retailers facing bankruptcy, was facing the pressures from other competition such as Casper, a new mattress startup company that many millennials are flocking to. On top of this and a load of debt, we can expect the first 200 stores to close within the next few days.

Mattress Firm CEO Steve Stagner released his thoughts in a statement about the store closings. There’s apparently a whole creative process to the closings and what the company plans to do to restructure.

“Leading up to the holiday shopping season, we will exit up to 700 stores in certain markets where we have too many locations in close proximity to each other. We intend to use the additional liquidity from these actions to improve our product offering, provide greater value to our customers, open new stores in new markets, and strategically expand in existing markets where we see the greatest opportunities to serve our customers.”

Reports that the retailer was filing for bankruptcy actually began surfacing in August. In addition to these rumors already beginning way earlier than they planned for, they had some other mishaps occur throughout the year.

According to Business Insider, Mattress Firm was apparently accused by ‘Internet sleuths’ of running a money-laundering scheme. The company watched on as its parent company’s business was being investigated. Mattress Firm also filed a lawsuit against two former employees and accused them of conspiring to push the company to expand too aggressively. So, this explains why there’s a Mattress Firm on literally every street corner.

The main stores that will be set to close are the ones  “in certain markets where we have too many locations in close proximity to each other,” Mattress Firm CEO Steve Stagner confirmed.

“We intend to use the additional liquidity from these actions to improve our product offering, provide greater value to our customers, open new stores in new markets, and strategically expand in existing markets where we see the greatest opportunities to serve our customers,” he continued.

Sounds like a pretty solid plan, but there’s no telling what the future of Mattress Firm could be. With 200 stores already set to close due to aggressive expansion, it could make or break the company.

Please SHARE this article if you shop at Mattress Firm! Don’t forget to check out the funny footage below of a man documenting his car ride through town, encountering several Mattress Firm stores on the way!