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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.
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(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.