We are excited to announce the launch of our new and best website. How did we get here? Over 25 years ago, it all started over a cup of coffee and a conversation with my dad.
He had his own line of fifth-wheel trailers, which he sold factory-direct. His customers were "full-timers," people who had retired, sold their houses and bought a fifth-wheel as their primary (and often only) residence. It sounded like a great lifestyle to me! But what my dad's customers kept telling him was that RV mattresses were not comfortable. They loved the lifestyle but hated the cheap, poorly designed mattress in their RV.
So in 1996, I founded a mattress company to solve their sleep problems: BearBeds - dual adjustable airbeds designed and sized for RVs. Back then, we sold our mattresses "mail order," a term most young people today have never heard of. We made a comprehensive (if slightly amateurish!) VHS videotape that we sent out to prospective customers.
It didn't take long for our little company to flourish, and soon we wondered if this new internet thing might be an even better way to sell our beds. Back then, the internet was a new technology. Google was years from launching, and we were monitoring this little online book company called Amazon to see if it could make it as an online book store. If they could sell books, could we sell beds?
We decided we'd give it a shot, and in 1997, we bought a "how-to" book on HTML and hand-built our first website. Just like that, we had become part of the small e-commerce world. Soon we were learning about search engines and banner ads, and even bought clicks on the first Pay Per Click search engine, the now long-gone GoTo.com.
Over 25 years later and thousands of beds sold for RV and home use, we couldn't be more excited about where we are. Our beds are better than ever, and our new website is built to match.
Watch this space for further updates and news about the industry, our products, and our ever-expanding and highly improved website. And as always, we want to hear from you. Comment below with any ideas, comments, concerns, suggestions, etc., about our site.
