REVEALED… How interns plump up mattress maker Emma Mattress
It claims to be the only ‘bed-in-a-box’ mattress seller in the UK to turn a profit – which has had loss-making rivals scratching their heads about its magic formula.
But an investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed that Emma Mattress – one of a handful of online start-ups targeting British buyers with flashy adverts – keeps costs low by hiring dozens of interns, some of whom hold key roles.
The move by the Frankfurt-based company, whose largest market is the UK, comes amid troubles at rivals Eve Sleep and Simba Sleep, which failed to merge in September.
And a dreadful stock market float in New York for Casper Sleep has seen its shares more than halve since it listed last month.
Emma Mattress relies on interns to keep its costs low, some of whom hold real responsibility
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that nearly 15 per cent of Emma Mattress’s 330 staff are interns on low wages.
As of Wednesday last week, 26 of the 100 posts advertised on Emma’s website were for internships.
One said whoever secured the job of ‘Internship Business Development UK’ would be ‘responsible for expanding our Emma e-commerce shop in the UK market’.
On the jobs review site Glassdoor, former staff have complained of low wages and high staff turnover, as many are interns.
One said ‘very often it feels like an actual customer-service job, rather than an internship’ and complained of being paid half the minimum wage.
The firm, run by Dennis Schmoltzi, told The Mail on Sunday that it always complied with regulations and said internships are mandatory for many students in Germany, where the jobs are based.
Emma and its rivals Simba, Eve and Casper were launched hoping to lure customers with the promise of a perfect night’s sleep thanks to mattresses built using the latest in ‘sleep technology’.
The mattresses are sold online and delivered rolled up in boxes.
The start-ups have typically targeted millennials with glitzy marketing campaigns on billboards and TV. They have attracted big-name investors such as the disgraced Neil Woodford, and Nigel Wray, the owner of Saracens rugby club.
In the US, Casper has a crowd of celebrity investors including actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Ashton Kutcher, rapper 50 Cent and Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine. Simba is promoted by Welsh footballer Gareth Bale.
Documents filed by Casper the month before its listing revealed it lost $67million (£55million) in the first nine months of 2019, following losses of $92million in 2018. Having been valued at more than $1billion before its listing, it is now worth just $200million.
Eve Sleep, the only online mattress seller listed on London’s Stock Exchange, is expected to report an annual loss of £11.7million this month.
But Emma Mattress, part of the Bettzeit group, has boasted of its profitable business model, hitting out at rivals for spending more than they can afford.
The company said it hires a third of the interns after they have completed their studies and denied their use was the reason why it was profitable, saying: ‘We are one of the leading companies in terms of marketing efficiency.’
The firm, which says it has sold more than 500,000 mattresses to date, has received just £4million in outside funding since being founded in 2015. It has survived off its own operating cash flows since 2018, it said.
It is understood to have made £130 million of sales last year, a third of which is thought to have been made in the UK.