ALEXANDRIA, Va. – What happened to the mattress industry last year? A lot of things, says John Baugh, managing director for Stifel, who covers the home furnishings industry.

In a commentary included in the latest Bedding Market Quarterly issued by the International Sleep Products Assn., Baugh looks at a year that saw unit and dollar declines for the domestic bedding industry.

“Clearly the fourth quarter of 2018 and the full year were a disappointment for the mattress industry,” he wrote. “Multiple factors were at play, including rapid import growth of mattresses, discounting and promoting and store closures out of Mattress Firm, continued growth of online players and bed-in-a-box manufacturers, inflation in raw materials, soft housing numbers and a Q4 filled with bad headlines. This culminated in a year that saw materially negative unit trends for the domestic mattress manufacturers (particularly those selling below $1,000 price points) and rapid growth of imports that did not fully offset the domestic decline.”