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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

I want to buy a mattress. Mattress review sites are all phony. Amazon is all phony reviews. Mattress FIRM is hugely overpriced. Bed, Bath, and Beyond's brands were just names they'd acquired. That entire industry has managed to shoot itself in the foot. Probably better to order from an actual manufacturer on Alibaba.

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Consider the Foam Factory. We've bought a mattress and separately a foam topper from them and they've been great. You can tell they're legit because their products are listed in tables and because the styling on the website is completely out of fashion.

https://www.thefoamfactory.com/mattress/memorymattress.html

> You can tell they're legit because their products are listed in tables and because the styling on the website is completely out of fashion.

I have noticed that the closer something looks to a 1995 HTML skeleton, the more I trust it these days. I assume anything else has been run through a layer of marketers.

I wonder if they're ever gonna pick up on that?

Holy hell you're not kidding. It's like I'm browsing a site in 1999.

It's pretty refreshing, though. The entire page loads in under 1/4 of a second for me.

You made me check, 150ms from start to finish

We're really missing out

Also, FYI, with mattress firm, your warranty is null and void if you ever spill anything on your bed. I bought a mattress from them and within a year, in the literal use of the term, came apart at the seams. One night I woke up and my elbow was... in the bed rubbing against a spring.

I assumed such a structural failing would be under warranty, but they rejected it because of a roughly 2" stain on the mattress. Apparently, that stain was structural. I'm still salty about it.

My bed developed a huge sink hole within three months. I was able to take it back, but c'mon. I'm average weight, and I bought the mattress brand new. We paid an arm and a leg later for a Sleep Number and it's been totally fine for years and years.

Small claims court.

Mattresses are a huge racket in general. Think about how often you need to buy a mattress and then consider how many stores in you area sell only mattresses out of expensive storefronts full of salesmen. The margins per mattress have to be astronomical to support a business model like that. But on the other hand they are very heavy and bulky which makes them expensive to ship and since people generally need to try several out before finding one that is comfortable they aren't great for an online business model.

The places like that around here seem to make their money off expensive massage recliners and other deluxe furniture, where the mattresses are just there to get people in the door every so often.

Maybe around there. Where we are you can't find a store that charges under $2500 for a Mattress. Was such a racket I rolled the dice on a $300 shipped mattress from Amazon. No issues insanely comfortable. I'd absolutely buy another

And here they have all the sale campaigns going on almost year round. Dropping price 40-50% or more. And they likely still make hefty profit...

Ikea is a good option in this market. And generally for household basics.

Agree, their mattresses are decent. Bought an expensive one from a seller with a guarantee recently, had to refund it as it sucked which turned in to a month long process. In the end, it was donated to charity and replaced from Ikea. Ikea's come in only two styles: firm (IMHO commonly ordered, more profitable for Ikea, but less likely to be considered comfortable by more than one person and more likely to lose shape) and extra firm (safe for more than one person, lower profit margin for Ikea, typically longer lasting).

I went to a hotel and loved the mattress so I emailed them, and it was a Classic Brands Cool Gel. I bought one and am very happy with it, and it was relatively cheap compared to some of the DTC brands out there and extremely cheap compared to mattress stores. You can get it on amazon but some of the branding is confusing. I think we bought the Cool Gel Chill, although a quick glance online shows there are fairly similar. I also recommended it to some of my family and they are happy with the choice.

The hotel was also great. If you're ever in Houghton in the UP of Michigan, I would highly recommend the Vault hotel.

this is relatively common, some hotels even list the brand on the website and I’ve seen one that had a coupon.

Nothing like spending a night or few on the mattress to test.

During the pandemic I bought a $500 mattress from Amazon but didn’t like it. So they just gave it to me for free and refunded my purchase. So now I’m sleeping on a free mattress that I don’t really like but it was free.

The seller probably paid about $60 for that mattress.

The only place to get a new mattress these days and not get ripped off is Costco

They're still 5x more expensive than Alibaba. Which is where most mail order mattresses come from. Making a mattress costs under $100.

Alibaba is super cheap because you're buying the literal bargain basement version of the product, and what you're getting almost always violates local product safety laws that domestic manufacturers and/or sellers must contend with.

Yes, the mattress at Costco is 5x the price. But it's probably 20x the value.

My experience is the opposite - I've bought the exact same products from Alibaba that I could have gotten on Amazon for 4x the cost. The only difference being random brand printed on the plastic.

It depends on the product. All those random USB C docks and hubs? Sure, you can find identical ones on baba. But there are products that aren’t really available. I’m sure you can get stuff identical to Harbor Freight, but actually identical to Milwaukee or Dewalt? A bit harder.

The stuff on Amazon is the stuff from Alibaba.

The stuff in Target, Walmart, etc., is not. (And specifically, I mean the stuff physically sold in retail stores.) That is because retail stores are held to product liability laws in a different way than Amazon is (was? depends on the outcome of several pending product liability lawsuits against Amazon).

Try Avacado Mattress. I genuinely love the product and if you were to believe their spiel it’s probably sustainable and eco friendly…

$2,000 for a queen sized mattress? No thank you.

It's funny how you wouldn't blink at a $20,000 car, but $2,000 for a mattress that you'll use for eight hours every day for the next several years is "No thank you."

A good mattress can make your life better in ways that few other things will, on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Sleep is important.

Difference is there's not a car I can buy for $2,000 that's just as good (and maybe identical) as the $20,000 car in all aspects.

Arizona Premium Mattress. It’s basically, build your own mattress. Only down side, they are slooooooooow

Ah but they don’t offer the Alaskan King! Because a mattress nine feet on a side is what everyone needs.

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