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It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. You might buy 1 per decade, people forget what the experience or price was like. I spent a lot of t

It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. You might buy 1 per decade, people forget what the experience or price was like. I spent a lot of time researching then gave up and went to a "mattress outlet" laid on a few, then got one for around $400. I sleep fine, probably better than I ever have. There's also so much info on springs, foam, latex, rubber, on and on. It's overwhelming. Casper has good marketing and make it easy, and since it's so hard to compare, they just need to be close to other prices. They don't need to go full walmart

tempsy 7y ago
$1100+tax is more than double what you'd pay at Ikea, Amazon, Costco, etc. I thought the promise of all these direct-to-consumer products was to pass savings onto the consumer because they are vertically integrated and cut out scammy middle men. Seems like all that's happened is they just keep fat margins for themselves.
- Paperweight 7y ago
  Started-up with principles. Got big. Reverted to the beancounter corporate mean. Now charging what the market will bear. Opportunity now open for new startup with principles. Rinse and repeat.
- tyingq 7y ago
  There are plenty of 12 inch memory foam mattresses on Amazon that are in the $300-$400 range for a Queen size, including shipping. I'm happy with the "Zinus" brand.
  - jcampbell1 7y ago
    In the past 5 years I have owned a Casper at $850, a tuft and needle for $750, and something by Ashley for $350. I think I like the Ashley slightly better but they are virtually indistinguishable. I second the recommendation to go cheap.
    - AJ007 7y ago
      I've had a lot of negative things to say about Amazon for the past couple of years, but yeah, you shouldn't be paying much more than $300 for a mattress. Everything on top of that is your customer acquisition cost, which should be in your bank account, not Google/Facebook's. In my experience you can just optimize the firmness to your liking with a pad. If suddenly its too firm or too soft, you can switch it out and not have to replace a whole mattress. Relatives visited and wet the bed? Throw it out and get a new one, your only out a few hundred dollars instead of $1000+. For couples who want their mattress different ways, that is another market.
      - gnat 7y ago
        Could you provide a link to an example of the kind of "pad" you're talking about? We are mattress-shopping now, so this is a timely discussion :)
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    I bought a cheap Amazon matress (~200 or so) for a guest-room bed. That bed ended up becoming our primary bed and within a year it developed a noticable softspot + indentation where I sleep (my wife's side is fine, I'm a side sleeper, she's half my weight and sleeps on her back mostly). We rotated it and it was good for another 6 months before the same thing happened. In contrast, our 4 year old Leesa mattress (which we're back on as a primary bed) is fine. I'm sure that I overpaid with the $900 Leesa, but I don't know how to be sure I'll get a durable mattress if I get a cheap one.
- Ohn0 7y ago
  added cost of marketing though?
  - tempsy 7y ago
    not sure why that matters even if it's true their marketing costs are high. if it ends up costing significantly more then what value are you providing me as a customer for selling something that is 2x more than what I can get anywhere?
    - austhrow743 7y ago
      The marketing provides value by convincing you that you found a quality product in an opaque industry.
- awalton 7y ago
  > Seems like all that's happened is they just keep fat margins for themselves. Judging by their S-1, not so much... They're offering up $100M in shares on $200M of assets and $300M in debt. They spend about as much on marketing as they make from selling the goods, leaving shareholders to pay for all of the administration expenses. If it were a tech company it'd be easy to say this is another debt-fueled startup looking for an exit...
  - wbl 7y ago
    The gross margin of manufactured consumer goods with lots of competition isn't usually 50٪. But you're right marketing is needed to maintain it. I'm stunned by the high general and administrative costs.
rconti 7y ago
Shopped for a mattress with my wife. Tried pretty much everything in the store. her favorite was a firm no-frills no topper low end "brand" name mattress (one of the big 3). Was nice to get something delivered for $600ish in a california king. I was more-or-less prepared to spend whatever it took to get something we both liked. That was easy.
awalton 7y ago
> It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. I don't understand this at all. You can Google and have all the prices right at hand, so comparison shopping by number isn't hard. You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like - is the pillow top or foam too soft? Do the coils poke too hard? Too firm? Too heavy for you to move when you need to do the sheets? - You admitted to doing this yourself. I could never see myself buying a mattress from a company like Casper personally. Returning something like a mattress because you don't like it has got to be a level of hassle that I can't even begin to imagine being worth it, vs just making sure you bought one that you're comfortable with in the first place.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > so comparison shopping by number isn't hard Yes, it is. The major mattress stores each have their own custom SKUs to defeat comparison. > You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like To some extent, but there's a wear-in period on a new mattress. It takes my body a few days to a few weeks to get used to any new mattress; trying to figure out how that's going to go from a few minutes in a store isn't super effective.
- brogrammernot 7y ago
  It’s such an infrequent purchase that you don’t have a baseline for what is a good price or not. It’s not like when you’re buying food and you always buy bananas for $1 and you stop to grab a few items at somewhere new & bananas are $2 so you don’t buy them cause you have a baseline. It’s the same exact thing you seen in automotive sales, how do you tell if something is a good price? Well looking at the car compared to other cars in that area may help but what about one model vs another and so forth. So go lay on a mattress or test drive a vehicle, all that does is tell you if you absolutely hate the item in question not if you actually like it so you add a wide range of prices on very similar items with unlimited reviews or information on them it’s incredibly overwhelming. Caspar & others (Tuft & Needle) did a great job with the market by appealing to those concerns. 100 night free trial (T&N) and if you don’t like it, we’ll arrange to pick it up/drop it off at a homeless shelter or similar. Casper did something similar. Once a decade or half decade larger purchases without a baseline is incredibly stressful for most consumers.
xenospn 7y ago
About 5 years ago I bought a $400 mattress on Amazon. Came in shrink wrap and has been in my bed since then. It has been perfect in every way. I don't understand why anyone would spend more than twice that amount.

tempsy 7y ago

$1100+tax is more than double what you'd pay at Ikea, Amazon, Costco, etc. I thought the promise of all these direct-to-consumer products was to pass savings onto the consumer because they are vertically integrated and cut out scammy middle men. Seems like all that's happened is they just keep fat margins for themselves.

Paperweight 7y ago
Started-up with principles. Got big. Reverted to the beancounter corporate mean. Now charging what the market will bear. Opportunity now open for new startup with principles. Rinse and repeat.
tyingq 7y ago
There are plenty of 12 inch memory foam mattresses on Amazon that are in the $300-$400 range for a Queen size, including shipping. I'm happy with the "Zinus" brand.
- jcampbell1 7y ago
  In the past 5 years I have owned a Casper at $850, a tuft and needle for $750, and something by Ashley for $350. I think I like the Ashley slightly better but they are virtually indistinguishable. I second the recommendation to go cheap.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    I've had a lot of negative things to say about Amazon for the past couple of years, but yeah, you shouldn't be paying much more than $300 for a mattress. Everything on top of that is your customer acquisition cost, which should be in your bank account, not Google/Facebook's. In my experience you can just optimize the firmness to your liking with a pad. If suddenly its too firm or too soft, you can switch it out and not have to replace a whole mattress. Relatives visited and wet the bed? Throw it out and get a new one, your only out a few hundred dollars instead of $1000+. For couples who want their mattress different ways, that is another market.
    - gnat 7y ago
      Could you provide a link to an example of the kind of "pad" you're talking about? We are mattress-shopping now, so this is a timely discussion :)
- Johnny555 7y ago
  I bought a cheap Amazon matress (~200 or so) for a guest-room bed. That bed ended up becoming our primary bed and within a year it developed a noticable softspot + indentation where I sleep (my wife's side is fine, I'm a side sleeper, she's half my weight and sleeps on her back mostly). We rotated it and it was good for another 6 months before the same thing happened. In contrast, our 4 year old Leesa mattress (which we're back on as a primary bed) is fine. I'm sure that I overpaid with the $900 Leesa, but I don't know how to be sure I'll get a durable mattress if I get a cheap one.
Ohn0 7y ago
added cost of marketing though?
- tempsy 7y ago
  not sure why that matters even if it's true their marketing costs are high. if it ends up costing significantly more then what value are you providing me as a customer for selling something that is 2x more than what I can get anywhere?
  - austhrow743 7y ago
    The marketing provides value by convincing you that you found a quality product in an opaque industry.
awalton 7y ago
> Seems like all that's happened is they just keep fat margins for themselves. Judging by their S-1, not so much... They're offering up $100M in shares on $200M of assets and $300M in debt. They spend about as much on marketing as they make from selling the goods, leaving shareholders to pay for all of the administration expenses. If it were a tech company it'd be easy to say this is another debt-fueled startup looking for an exit...
- wbl 7y ago
  The gross margin of manufactured consumer goods with lots of competition isn't usually 50٪. But you're right marketing is needed to maintain it. I'm stunned by the high general and administrative costs.

rconti 7y ago

Shopped for a mattress with my wife. Tried pretty much everything in the store. her favorite was a firm no-frills no topper low end "brand" name mattress (one of the big 3). Was nice to get something delivered for $600ish in a california king. I was more-or-less prepared to spend whatever it took to get something we both liked. That was easy.

awalton 7y ago

> It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. I don't understand this at all. You can Google and have all the prices right at hand, so comparison shopping by number isn't hard. You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like - is the pillow top or foam too soft? Do the coils poke too hard? Too firm? Too heavy for you to move when you need to do the sheets? - You admitted to doing this yourself. I could never see myself buying a mattress from a company like Casper personally. Returning something like a mattress because you don't like it has got to be a level of hassle that I can't even begin to imagine being worth it, vs just making sure you bought one that you're comfortable with in the first place.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> so comparison shopping by number isn't hard Yes, it is. The major mattress stores each have their own custom SKUs to defeat comparison. > You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like To some extent, but there's a wear-in period on a new mattress. It takes my body a few days to a few weeks to get used to any new mattress; trying to figure out how that's going to go from a few minutes in a store isn't super effective.
brogrammernot 7y ago
It’s such an infrequent purchase that you don’t have a baseline for what is a good price or not. It’s not like when you’re buying food and you always buy bananas for $1 and you stop to grab a few items at somewhere new & bananas are $2 so you don’t buy them cause you have a baseline. It’s the same exact thing you seen in automotive sales, how do you tell if something is a good price? Well looking at the car compared to other cars in that area may help but what about one model vs another and so forth. So go lay on a mattress or test drive a vehicle, all that does is tell you if you absolutely hate the item in question not if you actually like it so you add a wide range of prices on very similar items with unlimited reviews or information on them it’s incredibly overwhelming. Caspar & others (Tuft & Needle) did a great job with the market by appealing to those concerns. 100 night free trial (T&N) and if you don’t like it, we’ll arrange to pick it up/drop it off at a homeless shelter or similar. Casper did something similar. Once a decade or half decade larger purchases without a baseline is incredibly stressful for most consumers.

xenospn 7y ago

About 5 years ago I bought a $400 mattress on Amazon. Came in shrink wrap and has been in my bed since then. It has been perfect in every way. I don't understand why anyone would spend more than twice that amount.