Casper continues push into Canada with Montreal pop-up

Dive Brief:

Casper has opened a pop-up store in Quebec, Canada, running June 21 to July 22, according to the mattress startup's website, with plans to open permanent locations in Montreal and British Columbia soon.
The pop-up is in Montreal on the rue Saint-Denis and joins the company's first Canada location, in Toronto, which opened last month, per an April press release on the company's Canadian expansion plans. Toronto also hosts its new Canadian headquarters.
Casper has also recently forged a partnership with Canadian bookseller Indigo, similar to its tie-up with Target in the U.S. In May co-founder/CEO Philip Krim told the Financial Post that the company's Canadian sales were already outpacing those in the U.S.

Dive Insight:

Casper and its rivals have eschewed the convoluted choices and discounting of traditional mattress sales in favor of keeping their "mattress-fits-most" offers in basic bed sizes at a single price paired with long try-out times and free returns. But the company is increasingly relying on brick and mortar for growth.

Casper opened its first U.S. stand-alone stores in February, after relying on partnerships with outside retailers (and, for a while, West Elm hotels) to feature its goods within brick-and-mortar walls. The company inked a deal with Williams Sonoma-owned furniture retailer West Elm in 2016 (which has since flipped to Leesa), has run a series of pop-up stores in Los Angeles, New York and London, and has partnered with Target.

Now it's Canada's turn, and it's a logical one. Sales are already brisk there, after launching online operations in 2014 and last year becoming the official "sleep partner" of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. The fall of Sears could work in Casper's favor there as well, as closures of Sears Canada stores give up that retailer's share of what the Financial Post, citing Euromonitor, says was a $1.8 billion industry in Canada last year, with sales rising 6% year over year.

Target would also have been a logical partner across the border, but the mass merchant left in early 2015 just two years after establishing its own first stores there, a debacle that left customers facing empty shelves and higher prices than in stores they shopped in the U.S. Indigo has hosted "nap pods" featuring Casper mattresses and now also sells Casper pillows in stores, according to Canadian newspaper Retail Insider.

"We've seen tremendous success in Canada with three years of triple digit growth," Krim said in a statement in April. "Investing further in the market and expanding our local presence will enable us to bring better sleep to even more Canadians across the country."