Blog: Not the time to write obituary for brick-and-mortar retail

The naysayers are at it again. Brick-and-mortar retailing is going away, they say. Welcome to the new online retail world.

How many times have we heard this story? It’s still wrong. Brick-and-mortar retailing is here to stay. Yes, it will change and adapt to changing times, like the current coronavirus pandemic we find ourselves in the midst of these days. But it’s a big mistake for critics to keep writing obituaries for the way that the vast majority of consumers shop for mattresses.

My reflections on the world of retail bricks stem, in part, from a robust reaction I received to my recent column on the power of brick-and-mortar retailing that I observed in years of happy visits to the High Point Barnes & Noble store, which, sadly, closed its doors earlier this year.

I discovered that there are a number of book lovers like me who have found happiness over the years in browsing the aisles at Borders, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores. And I know that same happiness simply cannot be replicated by scanning book titles online. Yes, shopping for books and even reading books can be done totally online, but that misses the tactile power of holding books in your hand.

But I also heard from some who see an era passing.

“No truer words were spoken,” one reader said of my column in praise of brick-and-mortar retail. But, he continued, “the days of touch, feel and speaking in person are going by the wayside, and it is truly sad.”

Now that may, indeed, be the case for many brick-and-mortar mattress retailers these days as we are in coronavirus lockdown mode. To a large extent, brick-and-mortar retailing really is dead at the moment in much of the country. But only something as devastating as COVID-19 could bring about that unprecedented state of affairs, and this, too, shall pass.

I’m hearing some early predictions about what the future of retail will look like, and one of the thoughts is that consumers may not be that comfortable lying down on mattresses in stores and trying out new sleep sets. Instead, they will shop online.

I do think that online mattress sales are gaining some traction when many brick-and-mortar stores are closed. The trend there is already crystal clear: Brick-and-mortar mattress stores and furniture stores have been losing share to online bedding retailers, and they will probably lose more share due to coronavirus lockdowns.

But that is the present and not the future. The simple fact remains that the best way to find the mattress that is best for your body is to visit a store and try out several different mattresses. Mattress comfort cannot be experienced online.

Mattress retailers will up their hygiene games, offering more pillow guards for mattress tests and providing more contact-free deliveries, if consumers prefer those.

But let’s not forget the basic math here. While online mattress sales are approximately 21% of the bedding universe, according to Furniture Today’s latest bedding distribution report, that still leaves almost 80% of the sales for brick-and-mortar retailers.

As Mark Twain might say: Reports of the death of brick-and-mortar retailing are greatly exaggerated.