Walmart Jumps On Digital Bedding Bandwagon With Allswell

Following in the footsteps of Target, West Elm and Pottery Barn, big-box retailer Walmart will be releasing its own line of home goods, mattresses and bedding.

The design-centric, digitally focused brand is called Allswell, and it aims to deliver a greater assortment of goods paired with a more convenient shopping experience. An emphasis on “the company’s expanding base of customers,” according to Retail Dive, suggests Walmart may be playing to an audience outside of its usual shopper base.

Young urban consumers catapulted digital mattress brands like Casper to the height of popularity as they embraced the convenience of ordering online and receiving the mattress shipped to their doors a few days later. Casper’s generous 100-night trial policy guarantees satisfaction by allowing customers to return a mattress if they don’t like it within the first 100 days of sleeping on it.

Competitor Target invested in Casper last summer and now sells its mattresses on its website. Likewise, mattresses by the digital brand Leesa can now be purchased through brick-and-mortar avenues at West Elm and Pottery Barn.

Walmart now seems to be going a similar route with its very own mattress-in-a-box. The launch, growth and operations of Allswell will be overseen by brand president Arlyn Davich, a seasoned entrepreneur with a decade of CEO experience backing his leadership.

Notably, Allswell as a brand is only affiliated with Walmart and not with its online counterpart Jet, which has been more popular among millennials by featuring acquired brands such as Modcloth and Bonobos. In addition, Allswell is not an acquired brand but homegrown by Walmart.

Experts said they were surprised to see Walmart building a standalone web property for bedding — as well as one for cosmetics — with the ink still fresh on the 2016 Jet.com acquisition.

“I’m surprised they’re not working more diligently to build awareness and equity in Jet,” one analyst said. “One has to wonder if some of the shine isn’t already coming off the Jet brand for Walmart.”