It's Presidents Day, go forth and buy a mattress

Presidents Day may be a time to remember presidents of the past and present, but it’s become just as well known for mattress sales.

In the United States, many holidays and events have become ubiquitous with the sale of certain products. Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer-themed products, leading up to the Super Bowl big-screen TV sales are popular, and Presidents Day is all about cheap mattresses, according to Tobe Berkovitz, a professor of advertising at Boston University.

“It doesn’t take much to turn a national holiday into a mattress-buying holiday,” Berkovitz said.

Presidents Day weekend is prime-time for nontraditional high-ticket items like mattresses, according to Puneet Manchanda, an Isadore and Leon Winkelman Professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan.

"If you look at the up and down trend of sales throughout the year, people are exhausted shopping-wise after Christmas and New Years, and this is the next big three day weekend since then,"  Manchanda said.

Target, Best Buy, Sears: What to buy (and skip) on Presidents Day and where to find it

He said high-ticket purchases like mattresses aren't an impulse purchase, so the the three-day weekend allows consumers to think before they buy.

"If you look at a mattresses, it's a product category that consumers interact with every day, but a lot of low involvement," he said. "A product like a mattress, you need time to go there check it out with significant other or partner and that creates a lot of barriers to just buying it on any given weekend or day."

On social media, many tweeted jokes Monday morning about those who plan to cash in on mattress deals from retailers like Sleepy's, Mattress Firm and  big-box retailers like Macy's and Sears.

And while the jokes about Presidents Day mattress sales abound, Presidents Day is an undervalued shopping holiday, consumer psychologist Kit Yarrow, professor emeritus at Golden Gate University and author of Decoding the New Consumer Mind: How and Why We Shop and Buy told NerdWallet. 

Yarrow said the federal holiday is a prime opportunity for savings on mattresses and winter clothing, but consumers should think about whether they really need something before buying.

“My advice to shoppers is to think carefully about the item, not just the price,” Yarrow told NerdWallet in an email. “It's all too common to get overly excited about a discount and buy more than you need or something that's not quite right.”

Is there mail on Presidents Day? A look at what’s closed

And while a 2014 Better Sleep Council study found that many Americans are anxious when it comes to buying a mattress, that may be changing with younger generations who are buying into recommendations that mattresses be replaced every seven to ten years. Recent Better Sleep Council research found that consumers expectations of how long a mattress should last are decreasing, with respondents reporting that they expect a mattress to last about 9.4 years.

That's a shift from older generations that may have held onto a product for a longer period of time, Berkovitz said.

"You can thank the mobile phone manufactures for that," Berkovitz said. "Apple, Samsung – you always need to get the latest mobile phone and now you need to get the latest mattress, so it's sort of a common advertising theme, just mattresses for whatever odd reason have become a hot marketing commodity."

But if you aren't in the position to purchase a new mattress on Presidents Day, the mattress deals will be back again in May over Memorial Day weekend and in September over Labor Day weekend, according to NerdWallet. 

Follow Mary Bowerman on Twitter: @MaryBowerman