Chen Qing didn’t like his job.
Going door-to-door making appointments for a student painting company and earning just $10 per appointment booked meant a lot of effort for little return, especially while attending Saint Mary’s University. It wasn’t the experience he imagined when he came to Halifax from China in 2009.
That all changed one day when his supervisor decided to offer two free movie tickets as an incentive to whoever booked the most appointments. Although not interested in going to the movies, Chen set out to win the prize, then promptly put them up for sale on the Halifax Kijiji site. He didn’t know it at the time, but it was the beginning of a whole new career.
“I sold them for $20 and realized this was a lot easier way to make money than knocking on doors,” Chen says. He started selling off his own belongings, reducing his small apartment almost to the bare walls before encountering another student who was moving out. His fellow student was looking to sell his mattress, a quality brand in good shape, for only $20.
“I knew I could get much more than that for it on Kijiji, so I bought it and I sold it for $120,” Chen says. “That was my first $100 profit.”
After that he concentrated almost exclusively on used mattresses, reselling them to other international students like himself. His sideline to studying quickly grew to the point he was selling hundreds of mattresses each year, earning him the nickname: The Mattress Man.
It wasn’t long though before Chen began to think about expanding his operation. If he could sell used mattresses, what excuse did he have for not selling brand new ones?
The hurdle to moving to the next level was convincing a major mattress manufacturer to actually sell to him. Companies such as Simmons and Sealy don’t sell to just anyone. They’re looking for established operations with a store and a showroom. Chen had neither, but he did have a concept, a proven track record and a willingness to do what it took to get what he was after.
“I decided to concentrate first on Simmons. I was actually late for my first appointment; the man from Simmons thought maybe he was at the wrong place and was going to leave when I got there. He said, ‘This is an apartment building. Where’s your showroom?’ I took him to my apartment and showed him the used mattresses I was selling. He wasn’t impressed.”
He wasn’t impressed by Chen’s set-up, but he was impressed with his passion and enthusiasm and agreed to arrange another meeting with his supervisor. At each level, Chen had to win over another Simmons executive, but he finally secured a deal, albeit under strict conditions.
First, he had to accept a restricted product line (only the company’s least popular brands). Second, he wasn’t allowed to do any conventional advertising. Third, he had to pay for everything up front. Chen said yes immediately.
“With a deal with Simmons in hand, I immediately went to Sealy and said ‘I’m working with Simmons and would like to carry your brand too.’ It was much easier to get them to say yes. Then I did the same thing with Springwall and they said yes too.”
After that, the Mattress Man left his used mattresses behind and only sold new. He started adding other furniture to complement his mattress offerings and today runs HomeTown Furniture and Mattress Ltd., finally achieving the storefront and showroom his mattress suppliers were looking for in the first place.
He’s also a serial entrepreneur, having started or helped found five different businesses. In addition to Hometown, Chen is also involved in an Internet marketing company, a storage facility, a cleaning company and property rentals. He’s now working on his next venture, but isn’t ready to release details yet.
