Popular bed-in-a-box company Casper has launched its first official brick-and-mortar store in New York City.
After spending four years selling its bedding wares exclusively online and in select retail partners, Casper opened the doors to its first-ever permanent retail location in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood this week. The 3,000-square-foot locale is decked out with testing stations, sleeping pods and enough whimsical decor to leave customers feeling like they’re in a playful wonderland as opposed to a traditional mattress store.
“It’s all about creating an amazing experience. It will be a zero-pressure environment with no commission sales people,” co-founder and chief operating officer Neil Parikh explained to Business Insider. “We want to create places that are fun and exciting. More like the Apple stores and less like a traditional mattress store.”
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To create this nontraditional space, Casper has outfitted its Sleep Shop with a series of small houses that visitors can pop into to try the brand’s many different mattresses. While these mini-bedrooms have walls for privacy, they also feature open roofs and calming nature sounds, intended to produce an ambiance of relaxation and peace.
“Buying a mattress or sheets or pillows is one of the most intimate purchases you’ll make,” co-founder Phillip Krim told the Washington Post. “You should be mentally relaxed and comfortable so you can find the right product.”
After giving one of the Casper beds a whirl, customers can then try out the brand’s pillows and sheets, examining not only their feels, but also the materials used to make the products. If they like anything they’ve seen, they can buy it right then and there and walk out with their new accessories same day. Or if they prefer to have it shipped, Casper promises to get it to any New York City location in two hours or less.
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According to the Casper team, the plan is to see how consumers respond to the NoHo store and work from there to perfect the Casper retail experience. If things go well, the brand hopes to open locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta and Chicago.
“The used to be this idea that a retailer would spend thousands of dollars on a flagship store and then it is done forever,” concluded Parikh. “Today, you’re going to see a lot of continuous iteration cycles.”
The opening of the Casper Sleep Shop comes just weeks after it was announced that Target would begin selling the brand’s products on its website and in nearly 1,000 of its retail locations nationwide.
Featured image courtesy of Casper.