Foam mattresses spring up at market

By Michele SanFilippo -- Home Textiles Today, 4/19/2004 12:00:00 AM

NEW YORK —

Foam mattresses in convenient carry-away packaging were featured in a few showrooms at the recent New York Home Textiles Market.

Sleep Innovations introduced a 12-inch memory foam mattress under its Novaform brand, while Louisville Bedding offered its own nine-inch product — both designed to offer comfortable alternatives to traditional mattresses without the hassles of delivery.

"Most of the traditional retailers are not in the mattress business, and this is a way they can do it pretty easily," said Kim Robertson, product manager at Louisville. "It's a great opportunity to get involved in the mattress business, as well as a great item for the catalogs and traditional retailers. We see huge potential."

Louisville's mattress is topped with two inches of visco-elastic foam and seven inches of firm polyurethane foam surrounded by a zipped removable cover. It features individual foam cells that reduce tossing and turning as well as pressure ulcers and bedsores, according to the company's medical division.

The mattress will retail for $399 queen and be available in all sizes. It will also have drop-ship capability.

Sleep Innovations' new memory foam mattress has a three-inch top layer of memory foam and a nine-inch foundation of high density, high resiliency conventional foam for support and elimination of uncomfortable pressure points. The product is designed to absorb weight and motion instead of pushing back. It features a removable embossed woven cover and comes in a wheel-away package.

The Novaform mattress will range from $999 to $1,499 retail for a queen at department stores, specialty sleep stores and wholesale clubs. It will be in stores this fall and is the first in a new line of compressed memory foam products.

"We've had a fabulous reaction to this item," said David Fuchs, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Sleep Innovations. "Because it doesn't take up much space, it can go anywhere and is in a box that can easily be transported from the retail floor to consumers' homes. It really changes the way mattresses are merchandised at all levels of retail."