The whole idea behind pushing the hybrid Category was to give the industry a different way to talk about quality innerspring mattresses that was easy to understand and would help the retailers sell more expensive beds. Well… it appears to be working.

According to this blog post by Professor David Perry from Furniture Today, sleep shops are reporting that the hybrid category is up 7 points and the memory Foam category is down 5 so we are looking at a 12 point shift. Why is this happening? The manufacturers out there are making some very compelling products, retailers are doing a great job of telling the story, and the consumer is saying that they get it.

I’m not sure how well these numbers translate to the industry total given the growth in the e-commerce space but it sure tells us something about brick and mortar. Don’t forget that the bed in a box guys are almost exclusively foam and that 20% of all finished beds being sold these days are actually imported from outside of the United States. Did you just spit out your coffee? So where is the foam category really? Have you seen the Zinus queen memory foam 8″ mattress for $163? 

I have been involved with Hybrids from the beginning and both of the Quinn brother ventures Spink and Edgar and Herobed are hybrids so you don’t have to guess how I feel about this construction. Average prices for foam mattresses are going down, hybrids are going up, so where will you put your focus?