Even though people spend a major amount of their time at their homes on their mattresses, it is very rare in India that people pay attention to the nuances of a mattress that gives them a comfortable sleep.
sundayrest.com, founded by Alphonse Reddy in september 2015 is a Bengaluru based Startup that sells premium sleep products such as mattresses, pillows, recliners, mattress toppers and bed sheets. Alphonse quit a high paying job at a PE firm based in Dubai and came back to India to kickstart his entrepreneurial journey.
To start his journey, he found a house to rent and bought himself a top-of-the-line branded mattress. Since the mattress could not give him the desired level of comfort, he bought and sold three branded mattresses as none of the mattresses gave him a good night’s sleep. Simultaneously, he started researching for over a year and found out what goes into making the perfect mattress.
Stating that the mattress buying experience is a very confusing affair where customers are at a complete loss as to which of the 20-50 mattress variants including coir, foam, latex, spring, they should buy. According to Reddy, his Startup aims to simplify the mattress purchasing dilemma by reducing the number of variants available. With just two mattress variants and one pillow variant at transparent price points.
Reddy and his team developed 27 prototypes of mattresses. The two mattress variants — Ortho plus priced at Rs 18,000 and Latex Plus priced at Rs 33,500 — and pillows made up of synthetic fibre is priced at Rs 2,000.
The mattresses are designed by acclaimed Japanese designer, Hiroko Shiratori, are made up of foam sourced from Belgium, the mattress fabric is sourced and stitched into a covers in Coimbatore and finally assembled in Hosur. Sunday has been notching sales of 500 mattresses a month in Bengaluru through its website www.sundayrest.com.
Interestingly, 50 per cent of the demand comes from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai, which the start-up cannot fulfill at present.Customers get a free trial period of 100 days during which they can return the mattress for a full refund.
Quality spring mattresses have been in existence for quite a long time in India. But given the high cost of such mattresses, the sales have been on the lower side. It would be interesting to see if startups like sundayrest can alter the demand pattern of urban Indian crowd.
Team TOS
