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Comment by codegeek | Hacker News Reader

"well you guys also have margins too."

of course. How can a business succeed without any margins ? The point they are making is that the margins are ridiculously high that these stores charge. They are claiming to reduce those margins.

"Here is how a cheap mattress is marked up"

I browsed through their website. They don't claim to be a luxury mattress and their point is more about a reasonable mattress for a reasonable price. Of course there never is a limit for how much you can pay for anything. Think a $15000 Honda Civic vs $100,000 BMW 7 series.

I think you are being a little too harsh in your criticism even though trying to be constructive. It may not be all marketing as Amazon reviews are pretty good. And Yes, Amazon reviews are definitely worth it (being an amazon prime member who orders at least 10-15 things a month).

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You're right, I also thought after having posted it that I was too harsh. I think it was due to the fact that I partially live this business on a daily basis and found some of the facts not trustful. Specially bearing in mind the product being sold is closer to a mat than to a reasonable mattress.

I think that harshness prevented me from making clear the two points I was trying to make:

1. A warn that everything has its price. Some people will mark up expensive, some people will mark up way cheaper, but at the end there is normally no such thing as free lunch and on average you get what you pay for.

And more importantly,

2. That I believe that these guys made an awesome work around marketing. But not from a bad point but the opposite. A great website, great picutres, great pictures on Amazon too like for example showing the customer how the mattress looks like when folded and when shipped! Pretty infographics. Tons of facts about their mattress. Great choice of payments methods, etc..

And on 2. I forgot customer support. I am a truly believer that customer support makes the biggest difference when running a business no matter if is online or offline.

But, to me it seems clear that they value customer service if they are directly responding to your posts here. The tools available on their website combined with the shipping and returns also underscore that.

That's why I emphasize it. I think you took my point above the other way around.

I guess I'm in the minority, the website strikes me as templatey and filled with millennial narcissistic fluff (the same bogus fluff of Kickstaters with it's endless no one thought of this until we did). The amazon reviews are far more persuasive.

Take a look at what is going on here. These guys are blowing a hole in the side of a high margin industry with a stick of dynamite and cleaning it up with their money catching machine Tuft & Needle.

The "you get what you pay for" point underscores the brilliance of Tuft and Needle's entrance into the market.

You must understand that there are industries, like mattress retailer, that have operated on artificially high margins for generations.

If you look at The company's competitive positioning you will see that they are vertically integrated, lean, and willing to blow apart the competition.

When 2 individual walk into the car dealership and separately buy an identical car. one pays full sticker, markup and a warranty. The other pays $100 over invoice. They both got the identical car; did they both get what they paid for?

I am impressed with the company's story and model. They are going to do well in the mattress business for a long time to come.

I bought a california king tempurpedic mattress from sharper image in 2003. It set me back about 1500 and at that time the other mattress manufacturers were not in the memory foam market. Today, the mattress performs impecibally.

The 5" is suitable because of their foam construction layering and density.

The real deal will be the price point on the 10" model

Sorry but what you are saying does not make any sense at all.

When you are buying mattresses from different brands, it's not the same product but with different label. There is thousands of variations. So basically it's like if your individual were looking to buy two different cars. And I don't think you believe a $10.000 car is the same as a $60.000 car even though the 60K one has way more margin for every stakeholder in the product chain.

And in this case I'm sorry to tell but it is even worse as it is like if they were selling a no-license car vs. a regular car.

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