Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Lawsuit Details: https://sleepopolis.com/blog/casper-sues-sleepopolis-with-fe...
Casper Mattress Review: https://sleepopolis.com/mattress-reviews/casper-mattress-rev...
Jesus Christ that's awful.
Also, from the initial complaint:
> 2. In early 2014, Casper launched as an innovative new sleep start-up, radically disrupting the traditional mattress industry with one mattress sold directly to consumers online with a risk free in-home trial—eliminating mattress stores and their inflated prices. Casper’s unique approach sought to create a universally comfortable product with a sleek design delivered straight to your door without the need for commission-driven salespeople working in retail Case 1:16-cv-03223 Document 1 Filed 04/29/16 Page 1 of 20 stores. Instead, Casper offers its mattresses directly to consumers via its e-commerce website. Casper immediately struck a chord with consumers, generating $1 million in sales within its first month
That might be new for the US, but the UK had Ergoflex selling memory foam mattresses direct to consumers in 2006. They only have one product, but in different sizes.
https://sleepopolis.com/mattress-reviews/tuft-and-needle-vs-...
You shouldn't be able to sue someone for writing a review, this reeks of violating one's First Amendment rights.
I have no idea about the basis or any of the details but it's not just "wrote review, got sued".
https://web.archive.org/web/20160427113129/http://sleepopoli...
So, that might be a relevant complaint.
I'm not sure why, now the site has the needed disclosures, it's okay for Casper to keep up the lawsuit.
The linked review in question even strongly favors the Casper over the competing Tuft & Needle mattress.
You can sue anyone for anything.
You've misunderstood both my post and the post I was replying to. I know what they said, and I agree that the pay-to-play American legal system needs to be reworked. They were talking about stopping a specific kind of lawsuit, not all lawsuits that you'd consider "censorship".
From what I've read of Sleepopolis, might basically be an SEO-orientated affiliate scam with fabricated/misattributed reviews. Or it might be completely above board.
The Purple lawsuit against HonestMattressReviews was interesting, where it looks like Purple were actually in the right, and the guy was actually a shill for GhostBed. May or may not be the case, afaik it's still at trial.
I've never seen an industry with so much greenwashing. The organizations that certify the mattresses as being safe are comprised of the suppliers themselves. They are basically chemical companies pushing cheap non-biodegradable foam with crazy markups under exotic brand names. Casper just sells this cheap foam with questionable safety standards like everyone else. The only standard I found not to be shady was GOTS [1].
I ended up making my own mattress from slabs of organic latex. It was cheaper and more comfortable than the Casper anyway. Now when I have guests over I can easily remove a layer and have another temporary mattress. They ship compressed and rolled up in boxes which were way smaller than the Casper one. (Btw, the box advertised in Casper ads and in their showroom is nowhere near the size of the actual delivered box. It's massive). If you don't want to make your own, here's a good one: https://sleeponlatex.com/products/natural-latex-mattress.
> Greenwashing is like whitewashing with a green (environmental) brush: companies and organizations making themselves and their products sound or look like they’re really helping the environment. And they lure you in — creating the perception that you can help, too. In some cases you are helping. In some cases, it’s greenwashing.
Never new mattresses were such a huge market with so much passion and crazy prices!
I used to suffer from (mild) back pain; I have been sleeping in a hammock for over 2 years now and couldn't be happier. No more back pain; lots of space saved; minuscule cost (under $60 all things considered).
I liked that the layers stay separate - you can break the mattress down to make moving easier, and you can replace layers individually, if you ever feel the need (with a 30% discount if you buy from Spindle again inside 25 years).
You usually have some kind of firm base, a middle layer, and a soft top layer. I went with a firm latex layer (44 ILD), a medium latex layer (30 ILD) [1], and a wool topper [2]. Very comfortable with good support, and a decent amount of bounce.
[1] https://sleeponlatex.com/products/natural-latex-mattress-top...
i've tried so far: casper, leesa, lull, and ghostbed.
honestly, lull is the best one so far for me. it has the most tempurpedic style cushy feeling where your body seem to melt. i was most disappointed with ghostbed with casper not too behind. leesa was also good too imo. next i want to try is purple. gotta love this new trend, hope there are more of these in other categories.
You might benefit from reading up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem and I hope these mattresses stores create some sort of a shared blacklist of customers to prevent freeloaders like you. This is how the average consumer loses generous return policies from places like REI and Costco.
Unlike the secretary problem, the parent can re-buy any mattress at anytime, and one person buying a mattress doesn't impact another's ability to buy the same model. Additionally the decision can be deferred until after trying many / every model to make a better / optimal purchase.
REI taking its unlimited return policy down to one year was not from normal trial usage but from a select few returning gear after years of usage.
It's hard for me to see your comment as anything other than virtue signalling.
The mattress market may be big, but there are so many clones - surely only one or two can win out.
I feel like Amazon could swoop in with a competitive offering and obliterate the competition, if marketing and acquisition were the only barriers to success. They've also got a lot of distribution infrastructure they can leverage, which seems like another large hurdle.
What competitive barriers can companies like Casper or Eve put up? Can they put up any? And how should that affect inclinations toward IPOs and valuations?
Anecdotally, I've only ever seen Casper marketing on the NYC subway. Never anywhere else. I enjoy the creative, but have no inclination to buy the product, neither now nor the time that I will need to buy a new mattress.
I don't see any competitive advantage that Casper offers beyond that - Amazon and WalMart have similarly lax return policies as Casper without the premium. I can likely get the same quality mattress at one of the two above retailers for slightly above half-price of the equivalent Casper offering.
I do see Casper billboards in Austin in the Domain, which is a mid-to-high tier shopping center where the demographic skews younger. I've also heard ads on podcasts. So they are advertising, though it doesn't seem like they are targeting the typical channels for a mass audience, but rather are marketing to the younger demographic.
https://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/02/world/why-are-there-s...
Basically, mattresses in the US are sold at a very high markup (couple hundred times the cost) so it's an easy way to make money.
then, is there any reason why no-one disrupts the market with cheaper mattresses?
If you really want to score a deal on one, find the one you want and track it via CamelCamelCamel. The prices change daily and if you're patient, you can get it for 30-35% less than the top line price.
Is your price target like $50 for a queen?
Combine that with the not-so-great retail story and a bank probably doesn't want to give out loans for a huge retail space that it might not be able to resell.
Though... I bet there's some opportunities when you look at all the malls that are closing down.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
So you're saying my $800 mattress cost $4 to make and deliver?
ok dude..
I could see the markup being twice or even a little more than twice, but not 200x
[0] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3...
I've never tried a Casper, but this $200 mattress is by far the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on. It's honestly very difficult for me to imagine how a Casper could justify its $400+ premium for someone who's even slightly price conscious.
Maybe someone who has tried both a Casper and a $200~ foam mattress on Amazon can shed some light on the differences.
That said, a family member did give me a mattress a while back and wow, is it ever nice. They had spent close to $3000 on it. It was king size (which allow is great when you have a partner), but it was also foam over coil springs. Super comfortable. Before I would have said there was no difference in mattress quality when you get much over $500, but I take that back. Now whether the added quality is worth it, I'm not sure. No matter how comfortable this mattress is, there is no way I would spend $3000 on it.
Very important not to go too soft. You need more dense foam after the top few softer inches. Im not sure bed in a box can ever fit this dense of foam. My foam mattress is 300 pounds and would take a really big box.
Refund came right back to the CC as promised. No hassles at all. Not even much of a retention script, really. This was early 2016.
We sent it back because it was already starting to "set" and create a weird ridge between my wife and I, who are side-sleepers. It's not for us, but the company treated us just fine and as-promised.
$0.02
I have a Leesa which is good (I tried Casper previously), it's also available in Germany. https://www.leesa.de/
Reasonable price though? Perhaps not... someone else posted a link to a DIY site though, which is probably worth trying. All these companies are basically selling you three or four layers of off the shelf foam.
I recall seeing the difference by going to a custom foam mattress store.
e.g: If you buy a mattress from us, we'll donate one to someone in need.
TLDR -> You can only buy 2 mattresses from us and we will only give one to you, cash in the moral benefit of being 'good', possibly get tax exemption on your dollar. And btw, by doing this we don't just insult your intelligence, we also kill the competition as there are people competing on the market for people in need already.
Fun hint, I remember shopping for a mattress few months ago, eventually seeing their ads following me everywhere I'd go on the internet for a few weeks. But not only that, 2 days later I received an actual letter with a 'deal' from Casper.
Long story short, casper no thanks!
They're definitely fantastic at marketing though.
- Paul Graham (http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)
Try to charge money in a space that's free, in return for..... I don't really know tbh, is a recipe for suicide. It may have worked in the 2 weeks of the novelty effect, and that's it.
It's like selling entry-level Windows laptops. The average consumer doesn't give a shit.
I drink my coffee black and my espresso unadorned. I'm not "wondering out in the dark" why some prefer a cappuccino or venti frappé whatever-the-crap. People have different preferences.
Mind you, you'll be in for some pretty seroius HN downvoting. Not the done thing :)
e.g. https://www.overstock.com/Bedding-Bath/Splendorest-3-inch-Sl...
I've run the idea of moving the family business to a similar online model to what casper, eve and others are doing, with similar prices, margins, etc. multiple times. and we always drop this idea off because it's impossible to sell in the prices these companies do and sleep well with yourself, i.e. these guys have the same margins but they sell pretty basic mattresses with a 5 years ( if you are lucky ) lifetime under regular use.
The best argument for sleeping on a bed that I've heard is "chicks don't dig it", which has not been my experience, certainly not once you get through the door. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)