from the Great-question!-Let-me-sleep-on-it-and-I'll-get-back-to-you. dept.
There's an article up on Curbed which looks into the surprising number of online mattress-in-a-box companies that have been starting up recently:
Since Casper launched its "mattress in a box" concept in 2014, digital-savvy entrepreneurs have been launching new mattress brands online seemingly every week. Each offers a state-of-the-art mattress made with patented new materials or an innovative design, all compressed into a small box for easy shipping right to your doorstep.
...
It's hard to know just how many online mattress-in-a-box companies are floating around, but one such company's CEO said the number could be as high as 150. Another said the number of mattress manufacturers, which are rarely the startups actually marketing the mattresses to consumers, is close to 500.Ideally, a mattress is something you buy once every eight to 10 years, when an old one wears out or a major life event like getting married creates a new household. One can find a quality mattress for around $1,000. Given this is a relatively affordable, infrequent purchase for most households, why do so many companies see an opportunity in the online mattress space?
The article covers the reason for the explosion in the number of these companies, the economics and supply chain behind them, and the longer term survival prospects.
Originally spotted on Hackernews.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:40AM (8 children)
The only one I had heard of was Purple [mattress-guides.net], which ran a lot of ads on YouTube a while ago and is mentioned a few times in the HN thread.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:32AM (1 child)
Hmmm... shoulda make 'em yellow so the stains don't show.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @04:45PM
Or brown for those wont to take a Bombay Bed Bath
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tonyPick on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:37AM
I'd heard of a few, mainly through podcast sponsorship (Certainly on "Ear Hustle", "Hello from the Magic Tavern", "The Flop House", and perhaps even "Memory Palace" and probably a few others) and the barrage of youtube adverts.
I always wondered how they were managing to stay in business, especially with the no-questions-asked return policies most of them seem to have (and a mattress isn't exactly re-sellable, or easy to ship back) - I'd have though a bunch of people would buy them then ask for a return just to see if they're told to keep it anyway. Plus Leonard French did few reports on the whole Purple versus Honest Mattress reviews [youtube.com] thing, which just struck me as a strange kind of market to find this kind of conflict in.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:09AM
There was an episode of the Freakonomics podcast a year or two ago looking at this. America has an insane quantity of square metres of bed shops per capita (actually, a much higher area of retail in general than any other country in the world) and they looked at the factors that had caused this and how this kind of company was disrupting the market.
When we moved, we bought a mattress from one of these companies (though not one listed in the article), base largely on reviews. It's very comfortable and they had a 100-day no-quibble returns policy, so it was much lower risk than buying from a shop. Trying to sleep on a mattress for a couple of months gives a much better indication that it's comfortable than trying it for 5 minutes in a shop.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:07PM (3 children)
My SO and I bought a Purple mattress. It is insanely better than our previous, old-tech mattress. After using it for a couple months, I went back and bought a pillow from them as well. It is also much better than any other pillow I've used, much less any currently in our home (and there are quite a few of those.)
IMHO, the reason these companies — or at least Purple — are springing up is pretty simple: old mattress (and pillow) tech sucks. There's a market opportunity out there in the form of people who are waking up with aching backs and hips. Necks too, WRT pillows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:08PM
Not the real reason. The mattress industry is low cost and has insane margins. I routinely get insane discounts at mattress stores by being a time sink, having cash, and not being afraid to walk. You can guarantee that these online mattress companies have even better margins as they have way lower overhead.
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:35PM (1 child)
I see what you did there.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:53PM
Sheesh, I can't get away with anything around here.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @08:58AM (2 children)
Social media and adult dating. People are getting through mattresses like never before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:31AM (1 child)
I did not know Microsoft was doing mattresses... oh well, if I see a Windows logo on it, I guess, what, maybe three years?
( and full of bugs, too. Even the new one. And back-home telemetry as well. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @07:40PM
If it detects a couple of weeks without any "action" Clippy pops up. "Looks like you're reduced to choking your chicken. Would you like to go on Adult Dating?"
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:18AM
I would not like one in a box,
I would not like one with a fox,
I do not like them here, or there,
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like mattresses from the internet,
So I will just have to say, "Nyet!"
(Damn Ruskie propoganda mattress salespersons! This is all Bannon's fault!)
(Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Tuesday April 03 2018, @09:28AM (8 children)
My guess is that mattresses have a really high profit margin from materials/labor to sales price.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:13AM (7 children)
You're almost right there. Mattresses have an insanely high profit margin, think $1,000-2,000 or more for a product that costs $50 or less landed. Also, everyone in the supply chain gets to punch the ticket for their share of the revenue, and you can make any outrageous claim you like about your product and no-one will call you on it. What's surprising me is that there are so few mattress companies out there, given the profit margins and the money to be made.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:39PM
TFA says there are lots of startups trying to shake up the industry with new business models. Time will tell if they are successful.
In the traditional retail-store model, there probably isn't actually a lot of money to be made. As TFA says, most people do not buy very many mattresses during their lives.
I would not be surprised if a typical mattress storefront has a median daily sales volume of zero.
This naturally leads to high margins on the product because the cost of the product is not a significant cost of doing business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @04:11PM (2 children)
Who pays that much for a mattress? My previous mattress was only about $700 14-ish years ago and is going in my guest bedroom more or less good as new. My new mattress that I'm getting today, was only $550 including shipping and is probably just as good as the previous one was.
These mattresses probably do have high margins, but they can't possibly be making that much money when most of the mattresses I see are retailing for less than that. If people are paying that much for a mattress, they're getting cheated as a good quality memory foam mattress is just not that expensive to make or buy.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 04 2018, @01:37AM (1 child)
Ask your family, neighbours, non-geek cow-orkers. You spend a third of your life asleep, a good night's sleep is critical to your wellbeing, are you going to skimp on getting the best sleep you can get, you need our patented bio-symbiotic all-natural metamaterial scientifically proven clinically tested megapedic doctor-approved polymaximegalonic mattress, usually $7,500, but yours today only for $6,500 in ten easy instalments, just sign here, here, and initial there.
You can't make a claim too outrageous or charge a price too high for a set of springs and some ticking.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday April 04 2018, @06:35AM
Notice how all the marketers have slightly different product variations so its damn near impossible to price compare an exact item?
Sure, they all say "Serta" or "Sealy", but its always some custom variant name, and all the salesmen always claim the cheaper one his competitor is selling, is, well ... cheaper made. Race to the Top Price. Or sleep on an "inferior" product. Not much way for me to verify what I am actually getting.
Like you say, a $50 item, retailing at $1000. Like a HallMark card... gotta "care enough to send the very best". Even if its a scrap of paper. It makes it quite clear to my recipient that I am quite loose with my money...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @02:47AM (2 children)
My kids and I play a game while driving around. We look for Mattress Firm stores. We've found two in the same shopping center. We've found them where you can see the next one from the parking lot of the first. We've found stretches of road with too many Starbucks and even more Mattress Firm stores.
It got so crazy, we started going in to see what the big deal is. Inside we typically found two employees, twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to walk in.
I happen to own a toy store. I understand the realities of retail. They absolutely have to have an insane profit margin to make this work.
My mattress? I got the Costco foam mattress and added the memory foam topper. Love it. Paid about $600 total. Still feel like I paid too much.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Wednesday April 04 2018, @03:07AM
It seems like when some retail store in a strip mall or stand-alone building goes under in a not-so-desirable location, there's a decent chance a MattressFIRM will pop up in its place. I've always assumed that they survive because they are paying almost nothing for rent.
I thought it was pretty crazy that there is literally two of those stores within easy walking distance of my house (they are less than a mile apart, and my house is between them). But I guess maybe that's more common that I would think. One of them also has every light on the store on no matter what hour of the night I go by.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 04 2018, @04:35AM
Are you sure one of them isn't a Mattress Soft? They're visually quite similar.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:28AM (3 children)
Generous returns policies are great for honest customers, but I wonder how they work out in practice.
There's an online clothing shop here, where it has become trendy for young women to order dresses, shoes, whatever, wear them once, and then return them. Apparently far more than 50% of their orders are returned, which is just not sustainable. They'll have to find a solution to that, but once a trend like that gets started, it's hard to stop.
Meanwhile, on the men's side of things, there's another online clothing store: They send you complete outfits, chosen by their (in the ads) attractive young female sales people. They throw discount codes at you, but - geez - the prices. Do people really spend $500 for a pair of pants, a shirt, a jacket, a belt, and a pair of shoes? If so, I have some low-lying land I'd like to sell; at high tide you get a free swimming pool!
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @12:51PM
Yes, they do.
Trying to tempt Betteridge?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:43PM
Yes. Have you not been to a non-Walmart store in the last 5+ years? A basic pair of dress shoes alone can cost upwards of $300 or more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @10:45PM
>$500 for a belt, a jacket, a shirt, a pair of pants, and shoes
Any of those items can run $500 alone, some (jacket, shoes) two or three times that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @03:47PM
When people do not have jobs, all they can do is lie down in bed. Sleepy nation for the future. Take their jobs and let them sleep. The mattress wears out with overuse, hence so many new mattress companies.
(Score: 1) by darkpixel on Tuesday April 03 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
How in the hell does a *mattress* still cost $1,000?
The entire bed should cost less than $500 and include the box springs, mattress, and mattress topper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @06:48AM
Just like anything else, WE set the price. Once we pay the asking price, its apt to ratchet up for the next guy. If no-one bites, it is "discounted".
Some businesses have seen this and made a business model of bottom-lining... you know.... Amazon, WalMart.
Those places are for the 99 percenters. The fancy department stores ( Buffums, Buttocks-Wilshire, Robinson's, Macy's, Windsor, you know the "want to be seen here and have their name on the bag" places ) are for the one percenters. Or whatever ones they can lure into the store. The rest of us can't afford the place.
They use pricing to keep the riff-raff out.