Dive Brief:

• Nectar Sleep on Wednesday announced its mattresses will be available for purchase at more than 250 Mattress Warehouse stores along the East Coast. This is the largest brick-and-mortar partnership Nectar has been involved in, according to a press release emailed to Retail Dive.

• Through this partnership, customers are eligible to receive $125 off each mattress as well as two complementary pillows. Each mattress includes a 365-night trial period and a "forever warranty."

• Mattress Warehouse in a statement last week clarified that it is not the company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Innovative Mattress Solutions, Inc., the parent company of a different Mattress Warehouse that's headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.

Dive Insight:

While this isn't the first brick-and-mortar play Nectar has made, the company's partnership with Mattress Warehouse paves the way for the direct-to-consumer company to have a larger physical footprint and allows consumers to test its products before buying.

But more importantly, Nectar's latest partnership points to a larger trend of startups in the space pairing up with physical stores. In 2017, Casper, a leader in the disruption of the mattress space, partnered with Target to sell its mattresses, and before that with West Elm. Other online players, like Purple and Leesa, have partnered with Mattress Firm, and West Elm and Pottery Barn, respectively. Amazon, which released its own private label mattress in October, partnered with Nest and Tuft & Needle to sell exclusive mattresses from the companies, and Tuft & Needle announced in August that it had entered a definitive agreement to merge with Serta Simmons Bedding.

While Parachute's introduction last week of its first mattress indicates that the number of mattress startups vying for share left behind by Mattress Firm isn't slowing, the lifespan of these online pure plays may rely on these partnerships with physical retailers. Around the time Casper partnered with Target, it opened its first stand-alone store in New York. Now, the company has plans to open 200 more across North America.

Nectar may not be looking to expand its footprint to that size in the near future, but entering physical stores offers consumers the ability to interact with its products in a different way, which will likely prove beneficial to both parties in the partnership.

"Many direct-to-consumer brands are afraid to put their products alongside competitors in store, and this move shows that Nectar Sleep is confident in their product and proud of their brand," Bill Papettas, president of Mattress Warehouse, said in a statement.