If you bought a mattress online in the last decade, there is a good chance you bought it from an Edmonton company without even realizing it.
Since 2009, GoodMorning has grown into one of Canada's largest mattress retailers, shipping hundreds of thousands of mattresses to customers across the country. They own national brands like Douglas, Logan & Cove, and Juno, and are credited with pioneering the "bed-in-a-box" concept long before it became a podcast advertising staple in the United States.
And they did it all from an office near the Alberta Legislature.
"I sometimes refer to this business as the largest mattress company you've probably never heard of," says Sam Prochazka, the founder and CEO of GoodMorning.
Now, after 15 years of disrupting the industry online, Prochazka is bringing the brand into the physical world. GoodMorning is launching its first-ever flagship retail store in Edmonton's Mayfield Common this November.
Born from a bad experience
The company's origin story is a classic tale of frustration fueling innovation. In 2009, amidst the global financial crisis, Prochazka went shopping for a mattress.
"That experience was the typical experience that everyone would generally have," Prochazka recalls. "You go to the store, you get that very high-pressure sales pitch to try to justify an extortionate price tag."
He left the store wondering how a product made of wood, foam, and fabric could cost more than a piece of high-tech electronics. By the following Monday, the company that would become GoodMorning (originally called Novosbed) was born.
Prochazka and his siblings started the business with a simple hypothesis: if they cut out the middlemen, the commissions, and the "gimmickry" of traditional showrooms, they could offer a higher quality product for a fraction of the price. They pioneered the concept of compressing foam mattresses into boxes for shipping — effectively inventing the model in Edmonton before major U.S. competitors entered the scene.
"The reality is that these things don't have to be that expensive, and that's really what we set out to change," Prochazka says.
A "highly informed experiment" in retail
For a company that built its reputation on the convenience of e-commerce, opening a 4,000-square-foot brick-and-mortar store might seem like a step backward. But for Prochazka, it's about meeting the customer where they are.
"We disrupted this business online... but even so, about 70% of people want to touch and feel it before they buy it," Prochazka explains.
Following a successful pilot with a standalone Douglas store in Manchester Square, the new Mayfield location will house the full GoodMorning family of brands. However, shoppers expecting a traditional mattress store experience will be surprised.
Prochazka is adamant about removing the incentives that make mattress shopping dreadful.
"There are just some kind of crazy layers of incentives [in traditional retail]," he says. "It's almost like a nuance of the business where it's so critical that the salespeople close then and there, because people aren't in market for very long."
At the GoodMorning store, staff don't work on commission. There is no haggling. The price in the store is identical to the price online. The goal isn't to "close" a sale, but to help a customer find the right fit.
"We don't actually like that term (selling) at all. We prefer 'earning' customers' business," Prochazka says. "That hovering won't happen at a GoodMorning store."
Edmonton's "Why Not?" culture
While GoodMorning contracts its manufacturing to partners across Canada (with foams made in Toronto and Calgary, and fabrics knitted in Montreal), the brain of the operation remains firmly in Edmonton.
Prochazka, who moved to Edmonton from the UK as a child in 1986, believes the city's culture was instrumental in the company's ability to innovate.
"I would say the biggest advantage we've had here is just the openness to new ideas," he says. "When I work with folks here, there's no reason why we can't... There is a uniqueness to that here. Like, 'Why not? Let's try it.'"
That attitude has allowed the company to scale to approximately 70 employees at their downtown headquarters. Opening their flagship store in their own backyard was a natural evolution of that local pride.
What to expect at the Mayfield store
The new store, located in the busy Mayfield Common shopping centre, opens its doors in late November.
Customers can expect to test the full lineup of Canadian-designed mattresses, from the value-conscious Juno to the luxury Logan & Cove, without the pressure to buy on the spot. And for those who still aren't sure after lying down for a few minutes, the company's famous risk-free sleep trial, up to 365-nights, applies to in-store purchases just as it does online.
For Prochazka, this store is the next step in a 15-year journey to fix a broken industry — a journey that started, and continues, in Edmonton.
"Shopping for a mattress can be a great experience. It doesn't have to be the way you think it will be," he says. "Let us prove it."
The GoodMorning retail store is now open at Mayfield Common in Edmonton.