# Why do we have so many mattress places around Albany, NY?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 16, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465 "2015-09-16T13:43:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/1 "2015-09-16T13:43:10Z")
All right, well, I know if I can’t answer this you can’t answer this. But some conjecture would be nice.
First of all, evidence that we are oversaturated. I counted them up this morning. We have:
7 Metro Mattresses within 15 miles of Albany
9 Sleepy’s within 15 miles of Albany
Discount Mattress
Sleep King
Sealy
Those are the guys that just sell mattresses. Then we also have people that sell other stuff AND mattresses:
Ashley Furniture
Albany Furniture
City Discount Furniture
Mooradian’s
Old Brick Warehouse
Furniture Liquidators
Taft Furniture
Huck Finn’s Warehouse
Raymour and Flanigan
WALMART
JCPenny
Sears
I stopped at this point because I wasn’t even through the first page of results yet. What gives? Albany has about 100,000 people; the environs (the surrounding **eleven** counties) has a million people, but they are well over 15 miles away and have their own mattress stores. We can’t possibly be selling enough to sustain 19 mattress stores alone. The Metro Mattress near me still has its sad “Grand Opening” balloons up, in hopes that someone will come by, but no one is ever in the parking lot.
They’re drug fronts, aren’t they? Tell me they’re drug fronts and it will actually make sense.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/2 "2015-09-16T16:44:14Z")
55 views and not one of you fuckers could answer? 😉
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/3 "2015-09-16T16:46:06Z")
Maybe the back room is really a whorehouse and once the mattresses back there get good and used up they get promoted to the front room to be sold as new? :eek:
I got nuthin’.
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/4 "2015-09-16T16:48:04Z")
Oooo, that’s a good one! Nice!
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/5 "2015-09-16T17:44:28Z")
It’s a huge money-maker, or nobody would be doing it. Plus, they can lie their asses off about the products and get away with it. The ads are obnoxious and the spokespeople often more so. There is one locally that is owned by an annoying woman with huge -er- assets. She failed to honor delivery promises, then wouldn’t pony up on the “same day delivery or your mattress is FREE!” promises. She had to close her business. But wait! She went across the border to Vancouver and reopened there.
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### Author:  [@Gothic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gothic)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/6 "2015-09-16T17:50:28Z")
Over 300,000 People in Albany county.
“Mattress sets from major labels carry gross profit margins of 30 to 40 percent each for wholesalers and retailers. More luxurious models are even bigger moneymakers, with margins for the retailer of around 50 percent.”
[Consumer Reports Magazine 2022](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/may/home-garden/mattresses/8-mattress-mysteries/index.htm)
I wonder how many of them would go out of business if Marijuana became legal in NY?
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### Author:  [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/7 "2015-09-16T18:33:32Z")
[This is from someone asking the same question about a neighborhood in Houston, maybe it applies:](http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/are-mattress-stores-changing-montrose-into-the-mattrose-7495088)
> [@](#):
>
> Part of the attraction is obvious to anyone living in the area, as construction on new homes and apartments is going full throttle, which will mean throngs of new residents will be flooding into the area soon, and the mattress companies, or Reptilian Overlords (depending on who you ask) are hoping those newcomers will need a new mattress set.
> [@](#):
>
> Mattresses are also regarded as one of the few items that many consumers won’t buy online, at least not without trying one out in person first. That makes sense, as a good mattress can cost well over a thousand dollars, and no one wants to discover that something they hoped would feel like a slice of Heaven really feels like a bag of rocks when it arrives for delivery. The substantial price of a new mattress set might also indicate a trend occurring in Montrose. - As the area gentrifies, it has become more expensive to live there, with rents on the rise, and more well heeled residents replacing those of lesser means. As a result, companies like Mattress Firm likely anticipate fewer residents in the area who will be content to crash out on a rickety second hand futon to save a few bucks, and are betting that those who can afford to live in Montrose now will also be willing to spring for an expensive new mattress.
So there might be more mattress stores than before, but there are also fewer other stores, because so much business that use to be in store is now online. I don’t know if the areas you are referring to are gentrifying like Montrose in Houston, but that could also apply.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/8 "2015-09-16T19:13:48Z")
My wife once helped incorporate and do the start up paperwork for a mattress store. We learned a little bit about the business.
The short version is the factory provides a lot of the merchandise on their nickel. And there are no special build-out needs for the retail space. So a store can be started with relatively little capital. Most stores are started by folks who’ve worked awhile as a salesman at another nearby store who then get the itch to be an entrepreneur.
The mattress factories don’t care if they put too many stores in one area. The goods will sell through one or another of the interchangeable stores and some other store owners may go bankrupt. No skin off their nose.
The guy we incorporated had the bad fortune to have the city tear up the street in front of his strip center shortly after he opened. And they left it torn up for a year. The road should have been a good one for retail; the main drag leading between a freeway and 100,000 people’s worth of houses. Folks could get into his parking lot, but through traffic was so jammed on that street due to lane closures that any shoppers avoided it unless going to the freeway. Many businesses failed. Including “our” mattress store.
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### Author:  [@brovolone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brovolone)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/9 "2015-09-16T19:38:42Z")
yawn-\> lay-\> broken
anagram of Albany, New York
vicious cycle
coincidence? I think not.
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/10 "2015-09-16T19:59:27Z")
> [@Anaamika](#):
>
> 55 views and not one of you fuckers could answer? 😉
\*Come on, Anaamika,
whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on
Yes, I said come on, Anaamika,
babe you can’t Guess Wrong…
They ain’t Fakin’
Whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on…
Well I said come on, Anaamika
chicken gettin plucked in that barn
Oooh… huh…
Come on, Anaamika
Someone’s takin’ bulls by the horn-a
They ain’t fakin’
Whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on…\*
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### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/11 "2015-09-16T20:38:13Z")
Hey thanks guys. Couple of good answers here. I’m sure some of them will go out of business soon enough. My chief source of resentment is the one near me used to be a great Dunkin Donuts and now has turned into the aforementioned totally useless Metro Mattress.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/12 "2015-09-16T20:42:08Z")
I bet it still smells like a DD inside. There’s just no getting that much grease off those walls and ceilings and ductwork.
You should go check next time you’re near there and report back. For Science. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/13 "2015-09-16T21:12:04Z")
I came in here specifically to see how many wags would have already speculated that Albany is a bedroom community. I can’t believe I’m the first!
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### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/14 "2015-09-17T00:46:37Z")
We can probably give you a run for your mattress in Dutchess County to the south of you…I haven’t counted, but the Route 9 corridor certainly has no shortage of mattress stores. Maybe it’s a statewide problem!
My favorite was a few years back. There were two freestanding buildings along Rt 9, east side of the road, separated by a driveway. The buildings each housed two businesses. The northerly building had a golf store and a post office branch. The southern one had a Sleepy’s and a tire store. At some point in there the golf store went out of business. The store sat vacant for a few months and then reopened as…a Sleepy’s. Yup, another one, about thirty yards at most from the first. Far as I could tell they were identical.
Lasted that way for about three years, too, till one of them finally went gentle into that good night…
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/15 "2015-09-17T02:09:50Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#):
>
> I came in here specifically to see how many wags would have already speculated that Albany is a bedroom community. I can’t believe I’m the first!
Well, there _are_ quite a few locations on 5 and 7, in between Albany and the bedroom communities.
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### Author:  [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-have-so-many-mattress-places-around-albany-ny/731465/16 "2015-09-17T02:45:25Z")
I have two answers. Money laundering and bed bugs. I’ve never seen anyone but the sales guy in any of the stores I go past regularly. Could only be a laundering front! Instead of treating or covering their mattresses, people throw them out and get new ones (to be infested again, because the answer is to cover them).
Along the 2-mile stretch of main road between home and work, there are 5 mattress stores. If you widen that to the possible slightly out of the way routes that include two other 2-mile stretches of main roads that I could take to work, there are 10 mattress stores. Yes, it’s densely populated here, but most of these have only been around for the last 5 years or so. Never mind how many are in just a 5 mile radius!