Dive Brief:

• Casper announced it has formed partnerships with four furniture and mattress retailers across North America, including Sam's Club.

• The direct-to-consumer mattress brand also partnered with Ashley HomeStore, Denver Mattress and Mathis Brothers, pushing its total number of retail tie-ups to 21 across North America, the company said in a Monday press release.

• Casper said all of the retailers will sell its mattresses beginning in August, and select retailers will also sell other products, like its branded pillows.

Dive Insight:

The new partnerships will allow Casper to extend its reach across the West, Midwest and Southwest, the company said.

"The demand for Casper's award-winning sleep products continues to grow across North America," Philip Krim, Casper's co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. "Partnering with these world class retailers allows us to expand our geographic footprint with new locations and digital destinations where many people are already shopping for sleep."

Stores have increasingly become a vital part of business for direct-to-consumer brands as the costs of customer acquisition and retention become prohibitively high. The locations not only serve as additional marketing for brands, but they also give customers the opportunity to touch and feel products and interact with a brand on a more personal level.

Forming partnerships, though, provides Casper a means to expand its brick-and-mortar footprint without having to open its own storefronts. 

While Casper already operates around 60 owned stores, and announced in 2018 plans to open 200 retail stores across North America, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the brand to make adjustments.

In May, the company said it is "reducing the number of planned new retail store openings in 2020." The pandemic has forced much of the industry to adapt and reign in on existing plans. Burrow, a DTC furniture brand, told Retail Dive earlier this year that it has been forced to put its plans on hold as a result of the pandemic, and Macy's has had to significantly pull back on its Polaris turnaround effort.

These partnerships also allow Casper to broaden its presence within "essential" retailers. Already having formed partnerships with retailers like Costco and Target, its latest partnership with Sam's Club may bode well for Casper as coronavirus cases continue to surge in certain parts of the country and the threat of another lockdown on nonessential retailers looms.