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There's a furniture salesman here in Houston who makes heavy use of that sort of promotion. His latest if you spend $3,000 on a mattress and the Astros win the

• logfromblammo 8y ago
  $3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good?
  • floatrock 8y ago
    Freakonomics podcast did an episode on it: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/ That's also exactly why Casper and a half dozen other upstarts have come out with the memory-foam mailed-to-you-in-a-vacuum-tube online mattress sales.
    • mrbill 8y ago
      My current mattress is a $900 kingsize Casper. It replaced a 10-year-old Tempurpedic that cost around $4K. The Casper is a better mattress in EVERY WAY so far (had it since 2015).
    • fwip 8y ago
      The conclusion of the podcast was "If you spend $800 you're probably safe, below that it's hard to know if it's good or awful. Above $1500 is too much."
      • lotsofpulp 8y ago
        Considering Marriott/Hilton/IHG requires their hotels to use a 10 year warrantied mattress that only costs $250-$300 each, I'd say even $800 is too high. Even though that's wholesale price, doubling should be enough to get a single unit price. People would be better off investing in some HIIT cardio excercise if they're looking for a good night's sleep. And eating less / more nutritious food.
        • wutbrodo 8y ago
          Exercising and eating right aren't 100% fungible with money. That's not even close to the blocking factor for most people.
        • s17n 8y ago
          The extra $300 is what you pay for going with a reputable brand, because unlike Marriott, you don't have the time to figure out which off-brand mattresses are crap and which aren't.
          • ZainRiz 8y ago
            Book a room at the Marriott, go in, rip the sheets off the bed, check the manufacturer on the mattress tag, go buy your mattress from them. (And enjoy the rest of your night in the hotel)
          • lotsofpulp 8y ago
            They're not off brand, they're Temper-Sealy or Simmons.
            • s17n 8y ago
              In that case, your assertion that "doubling should be sufficient to get single unit price" was wrong, cause you aren't going to get a queen from either of those companies for $500.
  • shoo 8y ago
    I do agree. Mattress sellers love the value based sales pitch: how much would you pay for 1 hour extra sleep per night? Maybe paying $10/hour for extra sleep for one year is a bargain in some contexts, then you have a payback period of < 1 year, even for a ridiculously overpriced mattress.
    • im3w1l 8y ago
      The difference between a $200 mattress and the best in the world is way less than 1h per night.
      • logfromblammo 8y ago
        Not to mention that I have taken some pretty rockin' naps in hammocks of various sizes, the cheapest of which was $4.99, and packed down into a twist of netting smaller than my fist. But to be fair, the two appropriately-spaced trees required for that one were not included. The mattress is by no means the only way to get a complete and restful night of sleep, and past a certain materials threshold, you can't get longer or better quality sleep with any amount of upgrades to your mattress. The marginal cost is likely better spent by buying light bulbs that phase out blue light in your evenings, or by taking melatonin supplements, or with a therapy device for sleep apnea, or blackout curtains, or any number of other supposedly sleep-improving products. At a certain cost point, you might as well climb into a spa-grade float tank, or dangle from your back-piercings, or sleep in a bounce castle. I think that there is probably a bigger difference in sleep quality between a $300 mattress and a $500 mattress than between the $500 mattress and a $3000 mattress. Once the specific concerns that typically interrupt sleep are addressed, the returns diminish fast. There is no way I am losing an hour of sleep every night just because my mattress isn't good enough.
        • chipotle_coyote 8y ago
          I think that there is probably a bigger difference in sleep quality between a $300 mattress and a $500 mattress than between the $500 mattress and a $3000 mattress. That seems awfully likely to me, too. I paid around $650 for a full-sized Sealy pillowtop something-or-other, apparently aimed at the hotel market, from an online mattress store some years ago, and it's been fine -- at least as comfortable as the ($800 in the early 1990s) Stearns & Foster it replaced. It's possible the Sealy won't last as long as the S&F did -- at least back then, the latter had a reputation for top-notch build quality -- but I have a lot of trouble envisioning any mattress in that size class being worth over $1000, let alone $3000.
  • munificent 8y ago
    Because it's worth spending money on any product that your spends a third of its life on and which can directly affect your health.
    • rootusrootus 8y ago
      I have the same philosophy about office chairs.
      • mrbill 8y ago
        Mattresses (Casper), office chairs (Steelcase LEAP), keyboards (something with Cherry MX Brown switches). I spend the majority of my life using these bits so I buy quality.
        • namibj 8y ago
          Do you have any arguments to convince an employer to buy Cherry MX Brown (style) keyboards, instead of <15$ flimsy, flat membrane ones?
          • Spivak 8y ago
            I feel like it's much less effort to just bring your own. If you're into mechanical keyboards I'm willing to bet you have an old one lying around. Especially since the preference for keys is so personal.
            • namibj 8y ago
              Yeah, I wish, though the only nice full-size keyboard I have laying around is a Sidewinder X4, which is out of production and about half as tactile as the Chinese-made MX brown clones in the AnnePro. The value proposition for me doesn't really exist enough to spend out-of-pocket though. Mostly due to not reaping the benefits from increased efficiency.
          • paulie_a 8y ago
  • nkantar 8y ago
    The mattress world—like just about every other, I imagine—is crazy: https://www.gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/12-mattresses#episode-player https://www.gimletmedia.com/surprisingly-awesome/12-mattress...
  • seanp2k2 8y ago
    You can get IKEA mattresses for a couple hundred bucks and they’re OK, but having upgraded to a really nice cal king latex foam mattress a few years ago, it’s now hard to sleep anywhere else ( https://www.flobeds.com https://www.flobeds.com for those curious — arrived at this after tons of research, easy to move since it comes apart into pieces that fit into contractor trash bags and ships in vacuum sealed bags — no box spring either )
    • listenallyall 8y ago
      I love my IKEA Hesstun. 2 separate sets of coils (I prefer springs to memory foam), a comparable design from the major brands was about twice the price. IKEA offers a transparent profile view (i.e. the inside of the mattress) for every mattress they sell, and you can lie on every one for hours without a single salesperson bothering you. 365-day exchange policy, longer than any of the stores I visited was offering (IKEA allows exchanges, but not refunds on mattresses). People knock IKEA but I do not believe my mattress is inferior in build quality to an assembly-line mattress from Sealy, Simmons, etc. I know my mattress has low ratings online -- this is meaningless, all the review sites are just commissioned salespeople for the online brands (Casper, Purple, etc), so of course those sites discourage you from buying from IKEA.
  • meotai 8y ago
    Not just the mattress; the bed furniture counts towards the $3,000 too. So $2k for the tempurpedic & you can hit $3k easily.
  • alasdair_ 8y ago
    >$3000 on a mattress? WTF? How is that even possible for such a highly commoditized good? I paid close to $3000 for a sleep number matress with adjustable firmness for each side. Still use it every day fifteen years later and think it was well worth the money.
    • mkbkn 8y ago
      In India, my family spent Rs. 500 (about $8) for a custom-made mattress, that's filled with high-quality cotton tightly stuffed into it. No foam whatsoever. 30 years later, it's still rocking. Almost everyone here in India uses custom-made mattresses. Foam-based products are of recent launches and not many people use that. Only younger generations.
• dpiers 8y ago
  Terms like “Super Bowl” and “World Series” are trademarked, so advertisers use phrases like “the Big Game” or “baseball final championship series”, in this case, to avoid a lawsuit.
  • schoen 8y ago
    I wonder why it wouldn't be nominative fair use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use Maybe I have to learn more about this doctrine.
    • dpiers 8y ago
      The NFL has aggressively litigated uses of their trademarks, to the point where you might technically be allowed to do something, but realistically it isn’t worth the trouble. https://www.thedsmgroup.com/super-bowl-trademark-copyright-2/ https://www.thedsmgroup.com/super-bowl-trademark-copyright-2...
  • walrus01 8y ago
    You can also run a really superb, owl themed event. https://www.reddit.com/r/Superbowl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Superbowl/
    • matt_the_bass 8y ago
      This is awesome! Thanks for sharing. I’m sure to reference this next season.
  • paulie_a 8y ago
    The Olympics are down right evil when it comes to selecting cities. They will require long standing businesses to change their names of it is related to certain terms.
• god_bless_texas 8y ago
  Mattress Mack?
  • scandox 8y ago
    In Dublin we have Mattress Mick.
  • briandear 8y ago
    OT but worth mentioning.. He is one of the finest human beings to ever come out of Houston. A class act. He flew a bunch of vets on a private jet to the World Series just because. He also does a massive amount of charity that doesn’t make the headlines. During Harvey, as you know, he opened his furniture store as a shelter. A real gem of a person. He is also in his store, open to close, every day. (“I-45 North between Tidwell and Parker..”) Startups could learn a lot from the story of how he built that company.
    • pnathan 8y ago
      Is there a decent write up? Sounds, from what you say, like a lucrative business with someone who has a decent set of ethics. It's always useful to read people's stories like that.
      • briandear 8y ago
        I’m actually calling him tomorrow to ask about that. I was wondering the same thing. He does a lot of local talks and such
    • komali2 8y ago
      He did the "oil price above 75$ barrel by end of 2015 = all purchases for the year refunded" deal as well. Which meant as an oil and gas recruiter, not only was I juggling a shitload of candidates whose rent payments depended on us finding them employment (which depended on prices getting above 75$), they also had huge credit card debts that they'd have to keep paying off of the price didn't go up. Great fun.
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• ssharp 8y ago
  Last year, a window company in Cleveland ran a special where if the Indians had a 15-game winning any time after August 1st, anyone who used the company in July would have their money refunded. The Indians ended up with a 22-game winning streak during that period, resulting in around $2 million in refunds. The insurance for that was $75,000. I remember calculating the probability of winning 15 games in a row any time over a ~55 game period and the insurance company seemed like they were getting a great deal!
• mgr86 8y ago
  Something like that was happening in New England this spring "Buy anything at Jordan’s Furniture starting today and it will all be FREE, if the Red Sox pitch a No Hitter, home or away, after July 17th during the regular season. That is 64 games! There is an average of 3 ½ No Hitters pitched each year."[0] [0] http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/551925-if-red-sox-pitch-no-hitter-all-furniture-and-mattresses-you-buy-are-free/ http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/551925-if-red-sox-pitc...
  • astura 8y ago
    Jordans Furniture does those promotions every year. They are different events though every year. The insurance company paid out $30 million in furniture when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2007. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/PersonalFinance/story?id=3771803&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Business/PersonalFinance/story?id=377... Funny enough, Jordans Furniture is owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Last year Cleveland was treated to $1.7 million in free windows from Universal Windows Direct when the Cleveland Indians went on a 15 game winning streak. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20623379/local-window-company-give-17-million-customer-rebates-cleveland-indians-win-streak-reaches-15 http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20623379/local-window-com... If you're wondering about premiums, the first article quotes a guy in the business who say the premiums are usually around 30% of the value of the prize. That means the $75,000 premium paid by Universal Windows Direct was a steal. Of course, the odds of a 15 game winning steak in baseball are very small.
• unclebucknasty 8y ago
  Seems that it would violate the "no purchase necessary" rule most (all?) states require to avoid it being an illegal lottery.
  • astura 8y ago
    Since winners aren't drawn at random and it takes skill to win the World Series, it's not a "lottery", it's a "contest." https://gleam.io/guides/no-purchase-necessary https://gleam.io/guides/no-purchase-necessary >A contest is a type of promotion you can run in which an element of skill is involved. For a promotion to be considered a contest, entries must be skill-based and winners must be chosen based on merit. Meaning they cannot be drawn randomly. >Examples of contests include: >"Best Photo" Competition >Voting Contest >Sports-Based Contest >Essay Competition >"Tell us in less than 20 words..." Competition >When you run a skill-based contest, winners are not randomly drawn, hence removing one of the three defining features of a lottery. As a result, contests are not impeded by No Purchase Necessary laws.
    • unclebucknasty 8y ago
      Thanks. Having created contests for my business, I am familiar with the skills exclusion, but always understood the skill in question was required to be that of the contest participants. This is somewhat implied by your citation: >...entries must be skill-based and winners must be chosen based on merit. In the scenario above, it takes skill but not the participants' skill, so it is essentially as out of the control of the participants as which number is drawn by a ball machine. Now, if the skill in question is that of picking a winning sports team, then were talking about gambling which, of course, has its own set of rules and would be a stretch to apply here in any case. Overall, it seems this contest would be on shaky legal ground one way or another.
  • kolpa 8y ago
    It appears that since there are no "winners and losers" -- either everyone wins or every one loses an equivalent amount, these giveaways are not in scope for sweepstakes/contest laws.
• rrauenza 8y ago
  I'm trying to recall the Mancini Mattress (Bay Area) ad -- something like "If we can't beat the price, the mattress is free!" I'm thinking ... ohhh... I bet they always somehow manage to beat the price!
  • karthikb 8y ago
    Many stores will have custom SKU or model IDs, so a mattress that is physically identical and cheaper somewhere else is actually a different product per the paperwork...
    • rrauenza 8y ago
      Even if they didn't (and they do!), I'm pretty sure they'd sell it for a penny cheaper rather than make it free. The claim in the ad was nonsensical..
  • franze 8y ago
    well, if 2 people need a mattress it's easy: person A buys mattress. sells it to person B for 1 cent person B (or A, not disclosed in ad) gets mattress for less then 1c A&B split total cost
  • artificial 8y ago
    Yes, the way they do that is having specific mattresses that are only produced for them. So for example, let's call it Dreamliner XL 2000, this mattress isn't manufactured by anyone else, even if there are Dreamliners sold by other vendors it isn't that model, hence the bold claim. Whee!