Have you ever noticed how mattress stores are everywhere, always empty, yet somehow never go out of business? There's a reason for that—and it's sparked one of the internet's favorite conspiracy theories.
The truth is simpler than you think, but no less shady. Mattress stores can survive with almost no customers because the markup on mattresses is absolutely insane—usually between 40% to 50%. Some mattresses are marked up over 100%. That $2,000 mattress? It probably cost the store $500 or less.
Because of these massive profit margins, a mattress store only needs to sell about 20 mattresses per month to cover rent, utilities, and a single employee's salary. That's less than one sale per day. So even when you walk by and see nobody inside, they're probably doing just fine financially.
But here's where it gets weird: Why are there so many mattress stores clustered together? In some cities, you'll find four or five Mattress Firm locations within blocks of each other—sometimes even across the street from one another. This is what sparked the viral conspiracy theory that mattress stores are fronts for money laundering.
The money laundering theory took off on Reddit in 2018 when users started posting photos of multiple Mattress Firm stores in impossibly close proximity. How could they all stay in business? The speculation: they're not really selling mattresses—they're washing dirty money. The original Reddit post mysteriously disappeared, which only fueled the conspiracy.
The real explanation is less exciting but more complicated. Mattress Firm went on a massive acquisition spree, buying up competitors like Sleepy's and keeping all their locations open. This created ridiculous clustering. Then in 2018, Mattress Firm's parent company, Steinhoff International, was hit with a massive financial fraud scandal—though it wasn't money laundering, it was accounting fraud.
Mattress Firm eventually filed for bankruptcy and closed over 700 stores. So the conspiracy theorists weren't completely wrong—something shady was happening. It just wasn't money laundering through mattress sales. It was corporate financial fraud at the parent company level.
Still, the economics of mattress retail remain bizarre. The profit margins are so high that these stores can survive on a few sales per week. The overhead is low—just some floor space, mattresses on display, and minimal staff. And people only buy mattresses every 7-10 years, so the stores aren't relying on repeat customers.
So the next time you walk past an empty mattress store and wonder how they're still in business, remember: they only need to sell a handful of mattresses each month to survive. Whether or not you believe the money laundering theories is up to you—but the math checks out either way.