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00:00Spend time in a city like New York and you start to notice something. There are a ton of sleeping mattress stores around here. 32 in Manhattan alone to be exact. What's up with that . I mean we're not talking about daily conveniences like a coffee shop bank or a drugstore. The average American only buys a new mattress every 10 years or so. By comparison Best Buy sells electronics which people are always buying. You know how many despots there are in Manhattan since so why are there so many sleepers. Well the answer is actually more complicated than you might think. Some of what's going on here is business one to one want to grow open more stores . Human psychology also plays a role here too. We tend to think things will get better not worse and that natural optimism can make us think of expanding our business unless or until circumstances dictate otherwise. Retail can also be marketing . Every storefront is also a billboard. And even if a particular store isn't making a lot of money it may still be worth it if it reinforces in the mind of the customer that you are the place to go by. In this case mattresses. Then there's the fun world of commercial real estate. Sometimes a landlord will package multiple properties together. If you want that super prime location like this one here on Fifth Avenue you might also have to pick up another less than awesome location to seal the deal . By the way we did approach sleepers for comment and they did decline. However a group of commercial real estate professionals industry analysts and business school professors with a surprising amount of knowledge about the mattress industry were willing to talk . So what sits sleeps apart from other retailers. One thing we learned about the mattress game the profit margins are awesome . Up to 50 percent per mattress with numbers like that. You don't have to move a lot of them to have a really good day. Not only are the margins terrific but the risk for sleep is actually quite minimal. That's because they're not tying up a lot of their cash and inventory stored in warehouses. In fact the sleep is often only pays a manufacturer for its stock. When you or I buy one of their mattresses. You also don't need an absolutely perfect location. Nobody's really window shopping here. I mean it's not like you roll up in front of a sleepy is and suddenly say Oh my God I got to get one of those silly pasta PDX slippers isn't so much selling mattresses as people are buying because of that they can choose less than desirable locations like second floors which can rent for up to 50 percent less than a store that's on the street. And while there may be new online competitors like Casper and sat funny most people are still only comfortable buying a mattress after they've lied on one. Under the watchful gaze of a salesperson it's never not awkward but for the time being at least selling a mattress is still Internet proof .

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Why Are There So Many Sleepy's Mattress Stores? (Video)

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