Vancouver Mattress Stores Battle For the Modern "A"

It wasn´t long ago that the most important element to a successful business was location. As long as you had the foot traffic – you had the sales. Woodwards built its empire by being near bus stops in city centres. And quickly the retail world learned that if you wanted customers, you had to go to them. Especially in regards to a very hands-on, feet-on purchase such as a mattress.

Seemingly impervious to the dot-com boom of the 90s, and perhaps even reason for its burst, essential brick and mortar outlets such as mattress stores, toy stores and pet stores brought the public back to basics – some things you quite simply can´t shop for online.

However, all of that seems to be changing as more and more people reach to their iPhones and Blackberries to let their fingers do the walking over the tiny keys for Google, Bing, Yahoo and MSN searches as opposed to the 1000 page, five-pound awkward alternative.

When phone books and directories first came to be, the landscape changed. Suddenly it wasn´t enough to just be convenient. You had to be accessible and easily found. Overnight, millions of businesses popped up beginning with "A." Everyone wanted to be first in the listings. Even super-group ABBA chose the acronym of their names with record store placement in mind.

Today, search engine placement is the new phone book, and a quick look at the online landscape for any category unfolds a frantic battle for the top spots on the first page of any search. And mattress stores in Vancouver are not impervious to the modern way.

Once satisfied with good locations and prominent directories ads, this industry is now coming to accept the Internet as a viable way to search for their stores as well.

Simmons Mattress Gallery is a bit of a latecomer in the online game. But it will be interesting to see how the battle for the new "A" unfolds, as the treasured top spot of Google