In Alpine, Utah A new player has entered the mattress market, and its founders come from a well-known family.
With a fresh design and an online brand, one of the two technical developers behind Purple Innovation, a maker of grid mattresses, is reentering the bedding market. In 2016, Tony and his brother Terry Pearce launched Purple Mattress into the internet bedding market.
Tony Pearce’s engineering expertise is one of the driving forces behind the new venture, Ziwi. Along with Joe Nilson, another Purple alum, and Dan Hill, a former vice president of sales and wholesale, Pearce cofounded the new omnichannel brand. The three claimed to have more than 80 years of combined experience in the medical field dealing with mattresses and cushions.
The core of the brand is the Ziwi ZiPP technology, which consists of two foam layers that lock together with a tongue-and-groove-like structure. According to the manufacturer, the design supports pressure points and aids in weight redistribution. It also claims that the canals aid in air flow, which aids in temperature regulation.
Pearce declared, “I will always be proud of the grid technology my brother and I developed and the amazing advancements it has made for millions of people.” It is still one of my greatest accomplishments. In the same way that the grid does, no other technology has been able to separate pressure points from the body’s support zones and deliver precise softness and firmness. But I’ve long believed that there was a way to provide this crucial comfort without the unorthodox feel and unpredictability of the grid.
2020 saw Pearce and his brother leave Purple.
Although Ziwi is only launching one mattress model, it acknowledges that one size does not fit all customers and intends to grow the range to include six models with suggested retail prices ranging from $1,399 to $3,999. According to Hill, the company’s omnichannel approach consists of its own website, a listing on Amazon and potentially other e-commerce sites, and targeting the top 100 merchants.
Hill told HTT sister publication Furniture Today, “Our goal with DTC and e-commerce is to sell beds, but it’s also tied into a deliberate marketing strategy that will target shoppers who left our site without purchasing and redirect them to a nearby retail store.” “Our retail partners significantly increase Ziwi’s value. Some internet-based brands see wholesale agreements negatively or as a necessary evil. Since we are aware that retail partners will sell 80% of Ziwi beds, we will advise our apprehensive online customers to visit one of their locations.
Ureblock manufactures the mattress in Mexico, and according to Hill, the inventors of ZiWi are in talks with American manufacturers about supplying the product domestically.
Hill responded, “Why not?” when asked why launch a new bedding business at this time.
It doesn’t matter what’s going on in politics, the economy, or anything else—everyone needs to sleep. “Yeah, it’s difficult for folks to rationalize buying a bed right now, but they are just getting more requirements as time goes on. Everyone in the business will benefit if we can overcome customers’ mental barriers regarding sleep investment with a fresh technology narrative and innovative marketing strategy. We are aware of the difficult difficulties this industry has faced since roughly the middle of 2021 and how we got here. We think we can reverse that tendency and improve people’s quality of sleep.
Furthermore, Ziwi, what’s up with that name?
I wish I could claim that the name has a humorous origin, like it having to do with a kiwi that is tired, but I can’t,” Hill remarked. The name was chosen because we wanted a domain that was available and short, easily spelled, memorable, and open. We adored how the word ziwi might resemble the wavy contour appearance of our Ziwi ZiPP technology when typeset in a rounded font. It’s also entertaining to speak.
