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Comment by adrianmonk | Hacker News Reader

Several of the online mattress companies offer free returns. I think Casper and Leesa both offer 100 days, for example. I think it's very safe to assume that a mattress depreciates a lot when not in brand new condition.

But the model is obviously working for them. Maybe the industries aren't exactly comparable because of different margins, though.

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It works because these online mattress companies ship you the mattress in vacuum sealed plastic.

When you finally manage to wrestle the plastic off, the mattress expands to five times the shipped volume. For many people, the immediate next thought is "God I hope it's tolerable, because there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to get this thing out of my bedroom, let alone ship it back."

Both Casper (https://casper.com/faqs/returns-exchanges/how-do-i-start-a-r...) and Leesa (https://support.leesa.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011597147-Do-...) will arrange pickups for you, so they don't have to ship it back.

It's actually not that hard to pack up one of those mattresses. You won't get it back into the original box, but you can make it a good bit smaller.

You get a mattress bag, tape the end up, and cut a hole in the middle of the side and put a vacuum hose in it. Then walk around on the mattress until it's as flat as you can get it, and tape the hole closed.

These companies tend to donate returned mattresses straight from the customer's house rather than try to resell (against regulations in a lot of places)

Exactly. "Returning" an internet mattress is a lot like when a bookstore "returns" unsold inventory by tearing off the covers and dumping the rest.

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