In the middle of moving house. What a nightmare. Budgeting for new furniture, started wondering why a new mattress was basically going to wipe us out.
This guy has this weird little website. He gets so. Goddamn. Worked up about the mattress industry. For whatever reason, this is his calling, and he's not gonna rest until you know the truth.
Started reading because I just wanted to know how to mattress bargain, kept reading because why is mattress bargaining a thing, stayed up into the wee hours because his passion for the subject matter is infectious. And now I spread his pillowy gospel to you.
- At a price that ranges from several hundred to several thousand dollars, purchasing a mattress should not be taken lightly.
I needed a mattress about a year ago, and not knowing any better I went to the store that advertises incessantly on local radio (sometimes I have doubts about my intelligence). It was a great mattress but I soon regretted the huge amount of money I had spent on it. A couple of months later I unexpectedly had to move and moving that mattress would have been a huge ordeal. Luckily, the store has a 3 month return policy, 100% money back and they send a truck to pick it up. Of course what they don't tell you upfront is that, should you choose to take advantage of this policy, your name will be flagged in their computer system and you will never be allowed to return anything you purchase from them again. That's fine with me, I was able to find the exact same mattress from an outlet store for less than 1/3rd what I had paid the first time (which still was kind of a lot). PS does this guy realize that keyword targeted ads mean that every ad on his site is for mattresses?
Bizarre. I've bought three mattresses brand new - Two identical Sertas from the same sales guy six months apart (the ex took the whole bed - which was lame, as it was a $1500 frame and a $800 pillow-top) and a not-bloody-bad Ortho for like $600, which I sold on Craigslist a year later for like $300 because the remaining Serta came down to California. My experience with mattress salesmen is that the shady ones are shady from space while the honest ones are mostly interested in selling mattresses. As there is nothing inherently bad about mattresses, there need not be anything inherently scammy about selling them. You can separate the wheat from the chaff with one simple sentence: "I never buy anything on the first day." The scammers will walk, the legit ones will say "Huh - that's an interesting position" or the equivalent and move on in their attempt to sell you a mattress in an honest and non-predatory fashion.
Mattress Guy 3:27-3:31The sales associates know all of this very well, and the way they see it is that every person that walks into their territory is going to buy the product very soon. When a sales shark, excuse me, sales associate knows this, their confidence is heightened. The fangs grow longer and they begin to drool a little bit. Oh, sorry again, I mean they become a bit more aggressive. The sales associate, knowing their prey is going to buy, will not hold back much when trying to make that sale happen on that day, in their store, on their terms.
it's a technique I developed at Circuit City. "No, Redshirt, I won't be buying a VCR today. I'm looking at VCRs, I will listen to what you say, I will take your card and should I decide to buy one tomorrow, I will call you up and let you know I'm coming. But for now, YOU ARE NOT MAKING A SALE." They will answer your questions in a clipped and business-like fashion, they will attempt to leave you alone, and they will leave you to find better quarry. I applied the technique to automotive, motorcycle, mattress, and furniture sales. "Not buying today" will cause salespeople to treat you far more humanely, particularly when you make it known that it's a personal maxim that you live by, you're not backing down from it, and you feel no particular interest in explaining it and the more they harry you the less likely you are to purchase from them. A confident salesperson who is connecting his product to the people who want it knows that getting paid tomorrow is every bit as good as getting paid today and he will recognize that this peculiar idiosyncrasy of yours isn't difficult or onerous to navigate. A pit viper will bail. I was looking at used cars once. Drove a late-model 3000GT. They dropped from 19k to 17k in the amount of time it took to run my credit, but I wasn't interested in spending that much. A week later I called the same dealership about a later-model Eclipse at $11k. They offered me the $17k 3000GT for $11k. When I bought one a year older from a different dealership for $9200 I had a pretty good idea that I was actually reasonably close to the bottom on that car, whereas with the pit vipers it was pretty clear that they started the bargaining at orobanche uniflora prices.
I hate dealing with sales people. 2 of the last 3 times I've gone to a showroom the sales person has called me "dude." I hate being called dude, it instantly pisses me off. If you are a customer you can call me dude all you want, it isn't going to make me bend over backward to help you but if I'm the customer you just lost a sale.
Thank you for posting this, what a fascinating read. I recently went mattress shopping with my girlfriend, who was in the market for something like a Queen pillow top? Going into this, neither of us knew jackshit about mattresses, we just figured we'd take a look at a few places. We ended up going to two stores. At the first store, the salesman was nice enough. He went through many of the tactics this guy mentioned, like mentioning coil count and comparing "inferior" models. We listened politely, though we had no idea what he was saying really meant. We managed to extract ourselves from that store after prying the sales guy off ourselves. Our idea was that we had rough idea of what the market looked like, and checking out another store was a good idea. We stepped into the second store and mentioned that we had been at store x and had seen prices around price y for brand z. The sales guy brushed us off and said he didn't have that line, but that we might be happier with some other choices. Just like this guide stated!!! This guy was really pushy, he basically dragged us in circles for 15 minutes and bombarded us with info and mentioned this financing offer and that. Normally I'm hesitant to just outrightly just reject someone and walk away in such a situation, but I recognized where this was going (and my gf doesn't like rejecting people either). So I dragged her out of the store, while the sales guy half shouted at us that the prices weren't going to better anywhere else. What a miserable experience. Luckily her roomaate had also recently bought a mattress and turned us on to a great store with cheap prices and exactly what she was looking for. At least that's what she told me, i didn't go with her on that trip... hmmph.
That is definitely some major dedication to a singular topic. Can you imagine if that was your life's work? Back in college I drove my roommates VW bus to the second hand store and saw several old, stained mattresses behind the store. We quickly drove up, threw one on top of the bus, tied it down quickly and drove off. That disgusting, stolen mattress lasted me 5 years while in Missoula. I eventually sold it for $20 when I moved back to Michigan. Now I sleep on a Sleep Number bed. My wife likes a softer mattress than I, so it works out well. Her side is soft, mine a bit more firm. I have no idea how much it cost, but it was money well spent. ... At least I think it was. I'm not sure what the Mattress Scam man would say about it. EDIT: How is the move going? What stage are you in? Packing small things, big things? Actively loading a truck? You need any help with any specific suggestions etc, let me know. I've moved a family several times in the past few years. Be nice to your wife.
Pretty sure he'd say that as long as you're satisfied with the buy, that's a win. Unless you gave Big Mattress way more money than they were due. Made the mistake of jumping back into this site at work. Now I'm down the rabbit hole again.
My wife and I bought a Sleep Number bed years ago and I haven't regretted it at all. The only thing that I have a tough time with is keeping the mattress topper in place. It seems like it takes it about 2 weeks for the whole thing to slide down the bed and become uncomfortable enough for us to move it back up. We're only talking about a 6 inch move, but the elastic sides might as well not even exist for all the good they do. It wasn't cheap, but I totally agree with you in that it was money well spent.