US-Mattress.com Logo “All along the East Coast, we saw sales declines from 10% to nearly 60%. I’ve never seen such a dramatic sales dip.”

Early industry reports indicated that Hurricane Irene was a boon for ecommerce sales, as East Coast consumers were trapped in their homes with nothing to do except shop. “Not true” says Jamie Braxton, Marketing Manager of US-Mattress.com, the nation’s largest web retailer of mattresses and home furnishings. With over 5 million website visitors a year, US-Mattress.com is well suited to understand the economic impact Irene had on etailers. “In fact, Hurricane Irene produced the poorest weekend sales I can ever recall.” Traffic from hurricane-ravaged Rhode Island was down 57% compared to the previous weekend. “All along the East Coast, we saw traffic declines from 10% to nearly 60%. I’ve never seen such a dramatic sales dip.” Website traffic from most hurricane hit states was down an average of 30%. Rhode Island and Connecticut were the worst with declines over 50% while Florida traffic was down only 8% (full chart of traffic declines below).

eCommerce Manager Brenda Smith is not surprised. “Our East Coast customers had more important things to do this weekend than shop for mattresses, linens, and home décor—they were worried about protecting their homes and family.” But over time, as homeowners recover so should mattress sales. Many home improvement and home furnishing retailers expect sales to increase as homeowners rebuild and repair the damage left behind by Irene.

But consumers in the hardest-hit areas may have a harder time rebuilding than expected. Many retailers in these locations are reporting damaged stores and destroyed merchandise, making it difficult for homeowners to find and purchase the needed merchandise. “Since we are based in Michigan, with warehouses in Indiana, Ohio, and Utah, all of our mattresses were kept out of Irene’s path. We have plenty of mattresses and home furnishings available for immediate shipping. That’s the silver lining we saw after realizing how much our sales dropped,” explains US-Mattress.com Marketing Manager Jamie Braxton. “We look forward to providing a good night’s sleep to East Coasters.”

State Website traffic decline

Rhode Island -57%

Connecticut -51%

New Jersey -47%

Delaware -37%

Virginia -35%

New York -34%

Vermont -33%

Maryland -32%

Pennsylvania -28%

New Hampshire -22%

North Carolina -24%

Maine -22%

South Carolina -21%

Massachusetts -16%

Florida -8%

About Mattress USA: Mattress USA operates a portfolio of home furnishing website, with flagship brands of US-Mattress.com, FurnitureCrate.com, DayBedDeals.com, NameBrandBeds.com, and PartySuppliesDelivered.com. US-Mattress stores can be found in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Utah. Mattress USA is number 388 on the 2011 Internet Retailer Top 500. US-Mattress.com is proud to sell leading brands like Sealy, Simmons, Serta, Hillsdale, Klaussner, Wesley Allen, Lea Kids by La-Z-Boy, Bernhardt, Hooker Furniture, Howard Miller, Ashley, Quoizel, Sferra, Broyhill, Lane and Matouk.

Press Contact

Jamie Braxton

Marketing Manager

Jamie(at)US-Mattress(dot)net

(810) 225-2944 Ext 2260

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