It’s not often that revolutions happen in retail - one of the most entrenched, least progressive sectors out there. I mean, sure, there’s the whole web thing, but aside from that, the creation of IKEA and the invention of the January Sale, I’m hard pressed to think of anything that really makes consumers wiggle with glee.

But there is a revolution going on at Sleep Squad, a Chicago mattress retailer. Their company story and the way they’re retailing is described in a great article at Furniture Style, but in a nutshell:

You select the mattress attributes you want online, they throw a bunch of matching products into their truck showroom, and they drive to you. You lay down and test out the selections in the mobile showroom, and if you’re particularly happy with one of your choices, you buy it right there. They deliver it directly from the truck to your home minutes later.

This is, in a word, brilliant.

One aspect of Sleep Squad I find really interesting is that founder Michael Cote doesn’t come from a long line of home furnishing retailers, or anything even close. He used to head up nationwide B2B sales for T-Mobile. When he decided to get out and go retail, he surveyed households for the most common items over a particular price mark, and then cross-checked his data with an existing survey on the buying experiences that made consumers the most miserable. That’s how he chose mattresses; because, in his words, “This industry is ripe for change.”

Speaking of the need for change, I do have two criticisms of Sleep Squad, neither of which has anything to do with their product or their retail model.

First of all, their logo is pants. Well, that’s not actually true; it’s a cute rendering of a bed. But they are not selling beds, or even mattresses. They are selling a buying experience, and that buying experience is all about the truck. The truck is their market differentiator, and the truck should be their logo.

They don’t need to create an iconic image for their business; they have one already, and it is their business.

Secondly, they need an image gallery, pronto. I don’t understand, really, how this works. I have no idea how you shove up to 26 mattresses into a truck that doubles as a showroom, but I’m pretty interested. I want to know what the show room I’m supposed to lie down in looks like, before I trundle out there in my bunny slippers. And, you know, since I’m potentially going to be testing products in my nightgown, some nice, reassuring in situ photos of the sales staff I’ll be meeting in the truck would be a plus, too.

There are couple of other things they could do to help position themselves to their best advantage with consumers, but really, despite the oversights, I’m cheering for this business. This is a great way to look at a very traditional sector and do something new and consumer driven, and I love this sort of thinking.