[HN Gopher] What happens to a mail-order mattress after you retu...
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What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it
Author : japaget
Score : 152 points
Date : 2020-02-20 16:34 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fivethirtyeight.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fivethirtyeight.com)
| madengr wrote:
| Mattress shopping is almost as bad as car shopping. I'll buy a
| used car to get around the sleazy car sales people, but the wife
| absolutely won't go for a used matresss.
|
| I'm sure the mattress markup is astronomical, and I'm sure most
| brands come from the same factories.
| mthoms wrote:
| The sleaze of the mattress industry is a major reason the
| _mattress in a box_ business has done so well. I just love when
| these kinds of markets get disrupted because the disdain these
| companies have for their own customers is infuriating (see also
| taxi industry).
|
| There's a great "Adam Ruins Everything" episode about this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tZOKfCial4
|
| FWIW, I absolutely love my _mattress in a box_ and the buying
| process was painless.
| throwaway_tech wrote:
| >The sleaze of the mattress industry is a major reason the
| mattress in a box business has done so well.
|
| Don't be fooled if you thought the traditional mattress
| buying experience was sleazy (similar to a car buying
| experience), the mattress in a box online dark patterns take
| sleaze to a whole other level.
| mthoms wrote:
| I'm sure you're right.
|
| I have to say my experience was very good in that regard,
| possibly because I went with the most respected brand in my
| country (Canada) and the industry is much less
| crowded/competitive here.
|
| Having said that, I bought the mattress over 2 years ago
| now so maybe things have changed. I _hate_ dark patterns
| with a fiery passion.
| corporateslave5 wrote:
| Yeah I bought one for 175 bucks, just as a temporary thing. I
| love it. I'll never pay 1000 dollars for a mattress again
| exhilaration wrote:
| Just buy your mattresses from Costco, no sleaze in sight.
| [deleted]
| war1025 wrote:
| Sort of interesting to think about the fact that used
| mattresses are a no-go for people, but they'll gladly sleep on
| hotel beds used by orders of magnitude more people.
|
| Don't think I'd buy a used mattress either though...
| leetcrew wrote:
| ultimately people prefer not to stop and think about the fact
| that hotel beds are kinda gross, since there's really no
| alternative if you want to travel to a place where you don't
| know anyone.
|
| but even if you do acknowledge this, it's not nearly as bad
| to sleep in a "dirty" bed for a few nights as it would be to
| own one and use it every night.
| ska wrote:
| I once met someone who always traveled with something a bit
| like a thin cotton (silk?) full body sleeping bag (like a
| mummy bag). Idea was you never physically touched the hotel
| bed. It was apparently expensive.
|
| The funny thing to me was the she stayed in high end hotels
| pretty exclusively who I think you can at least be taking a
| fairly aggressive kill-it-with-bleach approach to laundry.
| I wondered if there was a wallmart version aimed at people
| who stay in seedy motels where it would seem to be more
| practical.
| fnordian_slip wrote:
| There are brand ones that are rather expensive, but at
| least in Europe I know that decathlon makes really cheap
| silk and cotton sleeping bag liners, because that's where
| I got mine.
|
| They are made to go into sleeping bags, and I love mine
| for that use case (less sweat and dirt in your down bag),
| but I have also used them in dirt cheap hostels.
|
| In one seedy hotel in Italy several people in my party
| had a lot of bedbug bites, but I can't say for sure if it
| actually protected me. I expect I was probably just lucky
| that there were none in my room.
|
| Still, it's a little over 100 grams (less than 4 ounces)
| and it makes dirty mattresses in shitty hostels bearable.
| ghaff wrote:
| Sleep sacks can actually be required for hostels.
| (http://www.reidsguides.com/hostels/sleepsacks.html) I
| imagine a silk one could be expensive but they're pretty
| inexpensive for the most part.
|
| That said, as someone who travels a lot, when I look at
| travelers' catalogs like Magellan at a lot of the safety,
| germ protection, etc. items, part of me thinks that
| people who buy all that stuff are probably better off
| just not traveling.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| They're definitely abusing the word 'most' there. I've
| stayed in easily 20 hostels at this point, and not once
| has a 'sleep sack' been required. And in all my hostel
| research, I have never stumbled across someone mentioning
| they needed one.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't think I have on the relatively limited occasions
| I've stayed in a hostel (or a mountain hut). That said,
| I'd certainly heard of sleep sacks sometimes being
| used/required in hostels. So it can't be all that rare--
| or maybe it used to be more common.
| ska wrote:
| Makes sense I guess although I've never run into that
| requirement.
|
| By description the thing she had was much smaller & more
| form fitting than above link. One of the "selling points"
| was how small it packed into carry-on, for example.
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably something more like this:
| https://www.rei.com/product/850427/cocoon-silk-mummy-
| liner
|
| The thing with silk is it's pretty fragile but it's
| probably the thinnest/lightest material that you'd
| actually want next to your skin.
| seiferteric wrote:
| I think bedding is actually the thing that makes me most
| uneasy at hotels, you just don't have a choice. You can
| expect they wash the sheets with each new guest, but I don't
| think they do so with the comforter which grosses me out.
| Then there is the whole bed-bug situation...
| tenpies wrote:
| I'm also somewhat suspicious that foam mattresses are quite bad
| for your health, not necessarily from a sleep mechanics
| perspective, but from an air quality one. I mean you are
| literally sleeping on a piece of plastic that is optimized for
| surface area. You then squish it constantly while using it and
| inhale those aerosolized plastic particles for about 8 hours
| per day.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Everything we touch/eat is plastic/comes in contact with
| plastic to some degree, your shoes, clothes, bread sits in
| plastic for days, vegetables for months, etc.
|
| I really doubt a bed wrapped in some form of cloth is any
| worse.
|
| Unless you live on mars you are most likely getting ten times
| more pollution/plastic from other areas then your foam
| mattress.
| jamespetercook wrote:
| Wow I never thought about this
| wahern wrote:
| There are latex foam mattresses. I've purchased two from
| Sleep on Latex (sleeponlatex.com, or Pure Green on Amazon).
|
| That said, whether latex, polyurethane, or whatever, with
| foam mattresses you're supposed to use a mattress protector
| to prevent sweat and accidents from soiling the foam.
| Alternatively or in addition to that, Sleep on Latex uses a
| wool topper, as I'm sure many other brands do. And then on
| top of that most people use sheets. I would think all of that
| covering would trap any particles so they can conveniently be
| washed out to sea with all the other microplastics from the
| laundry.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Unfortunately while off-gassing is a legitimate concern
| (particularly in poorly ventilated rooms) it is harder and
| harder to avoid, as spring mattresses now also often contain
| one or several layers of foam.
|
| I'd like to see some high quality research on this using
| realistic test environments, or even monitoring in actual
| bedrooms. I don't know who is willing to fund that though.
| timw4mail wrote:
| Kind of makes a used one seem like a better idea...
| pastor_elm wrote:
| Mattresses have been sprayed with flame retardants for
| decades. Supposedly, many of these new-age foam ones don't
| contain them.
| allovernow wrote:
| Ofgassing in the first few weeks or so may expose you to
| harmful chemicals, but I don't see any reason for foam the to
| degrade into fine particulate if it isn't exposed to UV,
| assuming it isn't made of total garbage.
| telchar wrote:
| I paid a little extra (~$600) for a foam mattress
| manufactured in California. I figured there is a lower chance
| of harmful offgassing than the cheaper Chinese mattresses
| like Zinus. I don't have any way to test that though.
| jrockway wrote:
| I was happy with the two IKEA mattresses I bought. I have one
| super-cheap foam one that I used for many years and keep around
| for guests; guests say they like it more than their mattress at
| home, and I think it only cost $30 and has lasted going on 15
| years at this point. I also had one of their more expensive
| latex foam mattresses, and that kind of developed a sunken in
| spot in the middle where I slept on it after ~5 years. I
| replaced it with a more botique latex mattress and the same
| thing happened; so I think that's more of an intrinsic weakness
| in the material rather than a manufacturing defect. And, you
| have to expect that something used every day for 8 continuous
| hours is going to need replacement after a few years anyway.
|
| What I like about IKEA is that you just walk in and self-serve
| yourself a mattress. No sales. No marketing. If you don't like
| it, at least it was cheap. So I'm giving them a recommend.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > If you don't like it, at least it was cheap
|
| it's actually better than that. you can return it any time in
| the first year of ownership, provided you kept the receipt.
| ohazi wrote:
| Provided you can get it into your car. If it came vacuum
| rolled, the odds of this being the case are low.
| leetcrew wrote:
| this is probably how they get away with such a generous
| return policy.
| dole wrote:
| One caveat about IKEA mattresses: being a multi-national
| company, verify the mattresses and linens you're buying
| complies to the same sizing in your region of the world; they
| can differ and there's always stories about how IKEA sheets
| don't fit standard sizes or fit them well, at least.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I've bought mattresses from Ikea in the UK, China and USA.
|
| In all three of those countries, Ikea sells mattresses in
| the regular local sizes. I recall that, maybe 20 years ago,
| Ikea in the UK only sold beds and mattresses in their
| native (Swedish? Euro?) sizes. But, in the last few years,
| I've bought both beds and mattresses from Ikea that are
| standard UK and standard US sizes.
|
| Of course, it's always good to double check the actual
| measurements of your old/new mattress before pulling the
| trigger.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I'll add a positive comment for IKEA mattresses here, too. We
| purchased one a couple of years ago. It was significantly
| cheaper than a "name brand" mattress, even if I consider that
| I may need to replace it more frequently. So far it has held
| up very well, too.
| Yhippa wrote:
| I bought one of these over a decade ago from Costco. It had a
| defect in it but I never really pursued returning it. I had no
| clue how I'd get it out of my house by myself. Use a chainsaw or
| machete to cut it into blocks and then toss it out the window and
| then take it to the dump? It was really heavy. Much heavier than
| normal mattresses. At least it seemed much more flexible to bend
| around corners.
| PopeDotNinja wrote:
| I once had a loveseat that I couldn't get out of a studio
| apartment without moving almost everything. Since I was a bit
| bored at the time, I slowly carved up the entire thing with a
| Swiss Army knife w/ the saw & scissors extensions. Was actually
| kind of fun.
| svieira wrote:
| I once tore up a recliner sofa with a crowbar and tossed the
| pieces out of a third story window (I didn't get it in, and
| there was no way it was going out the door in its then-
| present configuration).
| gbronner wrote:
| I had a tenant who did this to a batch of furniture. Wound
| up in the front yard where it got nice and wet in the rain
| and then froze.
|
| Made it even harder to get rid of it.
| zabzonk wrote:
| In Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1970s, a friend of mine
| inherited a flat and contents but no money. It was an
| extremely cold winter and he ended up chopping half the
| furniture to pieces (it was the typical hideous stuff you got
| in flats in Edinburgh back then) and burning it in the fire-
| place to keep warm.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Probably mostly natural materials.
|
| That'd be risky now.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I had a friend who moved into an old oddly shaped rental.
| When we went to move the heavy stuff in, the big front
| picture window was out for repair and the guys said we could
| move anything through it while they went to lunch. In the
| end, we spent an afternoon chopping couches and dressers and
| such into pieces and hauling it to the dump. Didn't really
| think that through.
| mech1234 wrote:
| Get a firm or very firm innerspring mattress from IKEA. You can
| do this for less than $300 and it will fit in the back of a sedan
| in it's roll-up-package.
|
| Sleep on it for a bit. If you don't like the feel, which you
| probably won't, add a memory foam mattress topper for ~$50. Use a
| thicker or thinner topper to suit your needs.
|
| Congrats! Because your mattress is firm, its foam will not break
| down for a long, long time. Sleep easy knowing you didn't waste
| stupid amounts of money and that your mattress will last
| essentially forever.
| acomjean wrote:
| I too like the spring mattress with memory foam topper.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I tried some Ikea mattresses when I was mattress shopping, and
| none of them felt comfortable even in a short test period in
| the store.
|
| I ended up buying a Leesa and have been very satisfied with it
| over the past 5 years.
| pathartl wrote:
| Not sure this is good advice. I like a firm mattress, but IKEA
| mattresses are absolutely terrible. I also cannot sleep with a
| foam topper on any bed. They're hot and screw up my back beyond
| belief.
| mstade wrote:
| As a counterpoint I have done exactly this and am perfectly
| happy with my IKEA mattresses; your mileage may vary I guess.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Ikea sells different types of mattress (spring, foam, latex),
| each with different thicknesses and price points.
|
| I've bought ~10 Ikea mattresses, avoided the cheapest ones of
| each type, and been pretty happy.
|
| I can understand why a foam topper would feel hot. It's main
| purpose is to provide a sleeping surface that's the same
| shape as your body, so of course this means it maximises the
| amount of contact between you and itself. So no space for air
| to circulate
|
| But I don't understand how a foam topper can screw up your
| back, unless your mattress is too soft to begin with. A
| bad/cheap foam topper will compress pretty easily, and
| provide no additional support, but I don't see what harm it
| would do.
| unlinked_dll wrote:
| >I've bought ~10 Ikea mattresses, avoided the cheapest ones
| of each type, and been pretty happy.
|
| You've bought _ten_ mattresses from them?! In how many
| years, and for how many people?
|
| I don't think my parents bought ten mattresses in the
| 20-odd years they had their four kids living at home - and
| I still sleep on one of them.
|
| Personally I don't trust anything from Ikea anymore. Their
| quality is such garbage for all their products from
| furniture to glassware to lamps, I can't give them a dime
| of my money knowing whatever I buy won't be around next
| year. Multiply whatever you were going to spend by 1.5 and
| go to a decent home store, or just go to Target instead.
| Wohlf wrote:
| I feel the same way about foam toppers, and foam mattresses
| are exactly the same.
| chihuahua wrote:
| I've had an Ikea foam mattress for a few years, and I really
| like it. I think it cost around $900 for a queen size (?)
| rjkennedy98 wrote:
| At the returns department of the company I work for they use the
| returned mattresses to clean the floor. The put the forklift
| prongs inside the mattress and drive around to clean up the
| warehouse.
| Reedx wrote:
| _"In California, a lot of charities can't accept a used
| mattress,"_
|
| So those in need of mattresses don't get them and more likely to
| go to landfill... regardless of condition.
|
| Are used mattresses really that risky? Are charities themselves
| not able to make a reasonable judgement call on what they accept?
| fwip wrote:
| It's risky for the charity. For instance, if the mattress has
| bedbugs, it stands a good chance of contaminating everything
| they've got in storage, requiring them to purge their entire
| inventory, sanitize, and build up from scratch again.
| sauwan wrote:
| Can't they set up an offsite hotbox to get rid of the bedbugs
| before it gets onsite? Surely someone could set up a mobile
| truck that can come, park, and heat up 15 mattresses for the
| few hours it takes to kill or drive off the bedbugs, no?
| megablast wrote:
| > Can't they set up an offsite hotbox to get rid of the
| bedbugs before it gets onsite? I am not sure if you are
| serious or not, maybe you think charities have huge amounts
| of money to throw at all problems like Google does?
| minikites wrote:
| Can you ensure that this process is followed fully and
| correctly all of the time?
| ska wrote:
| Is setting this up worthwhile for a general charity? Would
| it be better for them than say, working out an overstock
| donation?
| magic_beans wrote:
| Do you really thing a charity can afford that? And mattress
| companies have exactly zero incentive to fund this.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| One simple option is to immediately insert the mattress
| into a bed bug cover upon pickup.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Bug covers for mattresses need to be of the right type
| and installed properly. Doing it upon pick up only
| increases the risk of damaging the cover and ruining any
| utility it has. They're not designed for durability and
| it takes only a pinhole puncture to ruin the entire
| cover.
| giarc wrote:
| Off topic somewhat but there was a news story of a library
| that lost a ton of books because someone return a book
| infested with bed bug eggs. Went on the shelf and spread
| throughout the library.
| morelisp wrote:
| Wouldn't this apply to any bedding, or even clothing?
| minikites wrote:
| David Sedaris has told a story about catching crabs from
| thrift store pants.
| TallGuyShort wrote:
| Buddy of mine tried telling his wife the same story, but
| she didn't buy it.
| floatrock wrote:
| Depends. Clothing you can wash. In my state, outdoor
| outfitters aren't allowed to sell used sleeping bags
| because of hygiene concerns.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I've noticed this is very jurisdictional.
|
| I recently needed to get rid of a mattress set, and looked
| online. There are dozens of pages claiming that $Charity_X
| won't take mattresses, and dozens more claiming it will.
|
| That's the problem with the internet - it's sometimes not
| specific enough. Due to local laws, the charity in question
| doesn't take mattresses. Fortunately, in mine it does as long
| as there are no stains and they're in pretty good shape. It
| gets the mattresses fumigated and uses them in its homeless
| shelters and battered women's shelters.
|
| Edit: I suspect the charities that won't take mattresses are
| ones that run primarily on resale revenue, and not those that
| run their own housing.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I would assume the issue is partly that there aren't many
| organizations capable of dealing with it. You need to operate a
| warehouse for the mattresses, and have some sort of local
| storefront presence like Goodwill so people can donate and pick
| them up somewhere.
| circa wrote:
| I know this is about mail-order mattress companies. I have always
| thought that one of these Mattress store chains are going to be
| busted for being involved in a drug ring or something like that.
| There are way more locations than there needs to be. Especially
| with all of these online mattress brands popping up. There always
| seems to be 1 guy working and no one in the stores, ever. At any
| of these locations. I don't understand how a business model like
| that can last. But they're still kickin'
| freedomben wrote:
| At least around the salt lake Utah area those stores go out of
| business all the time.
| reaperducer wrote:
| This isn't exclusive to mail order mattresses.
|
| I went to a big-name department store just last week and bought a
| mattress. For the first time, I chose a "memory foam" mattress
| because I liked how it felt in the store. (Thought the
| traditional spring mattress felt more familiar and "right,"
| there's something about the foam that was nice.)
|
| When the giant delivery truck arrived three days later, there was
| the usual box spring, which I guess is what necessitated the
| truck, but then the delivery guys brought in a small box the size
| of a chair and that's what contained the shrunken mattress.
|
| I asked what happens to the mattress if I decide that memory foam
| isn't for me after all, and they said it depends on the brand.
| Some go to charity, some go to an exporter for resale overseas,
| and some get shredded and made into new mattresses.
| giarc wrote:
| Be careful with brick and mortar mattress stores (although you
| said department store). Many will have "restocking" type fees
| for returning a mattress.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I asked about that. The only thing I would have to pay is the
| same delivery fee again for the truck to pick up the old
| mattress set (reasonable, IMO), and the price difference if I
| chose to replace it with a more expensive set.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Returns on bulky items are a mess.
|
| I ordered a fridge and dishwasher from Costco. They were scuffed
| up during delivery.
|
| Costco asked me to bear with them... send pictures... write up a
| report...
|
| Once Costco was able to stick the delivery company for the bill,
| they sent me a new set. They didn't care about the original set.
|
| At one point a guy showed up in a pickup. No uniform. Not in a
| delivery van, or truck. Just a guy with a dolly and a beat-up
| F150. He said, "I'm here for the old fridge."
|
| When he saw they were new appliances, he was like, "Yeah, {the
| original delivery company} told me to take them to the dump...
| let me sell them, I'll come back with a U-Haul." And he kept
| texting and setting times and not showing. I had a Fridge and
| Dishwasher in my living room for over a month.
|
| I asked Costco what was up... I asked them to get it take care of
| ASAP... they were like, "Uh... I mean, I guess we can... or you
| can just sell them..."
|
| In the end I sold them to a neighbor, for half what I paid... he
| called the brand repair place and ordered a new door. Which is
| all I was expecting anyone to do in the first place.
| whalesalad wrote:
| FWIW I had a Leesa and ended up returning it. That went fine and
| dandy, everything worked as they promised with no frills.
|
| What I actually want to share with you all here is to go to a
| mom-n-pop mattress store in your local area. Find your local
| mattress NERD and buy a bed from them. They're going to have all
| kinds of wild stuff you can try and will do a great job of
| selling you the right bed for you (and your partner).
|
| My wife and I ended up finding this guy -
| https://www.youtube.com/user/MattressToGo - and watching some of
| his (surprisingly popular) videos you will see he is legitimately
| a mattress nerd.
|
| Coincidentally we lived about an hour from his brick and mortar
| location so we drove out to check out the showroom and ended up
| buying a mattress on the spot. It took a few days to arrive but
| it's without a doubt my favorite mattress.
|
| I love the convenience afforded by these modern startup companies
| but there is really something to be said for going to someone who
| has made one thing their entire life's misson and letting them
| help you out.
| joegahona wrote:
| I have a Leesa and don't love it, but I've had it over a year
| now, so can't return it. I didn't realize "mom-n-pop mattress
| stores" existed -- how would one find one?
|
| I ended up with an online-mattress purchase because of a poor
| experience with both a Mattress Firm store (pushy salespeople)
| and most obnoxiously with a specific manufacturer, Simmons. I
| stayed at an AirBnB in SF years ago and the bed was noticeably
| the most comfortable bed I've ever slept on. I messaged the
| host _years_ later and asked him what type of bed it was, and
| to my surprise and delight, he messaged me back with text and
| images of the tags on the mattress. When I tried contacting
| Simmons by phone, email, and even Facebook Message, telling
| them I would BUY that mattress, no matter the cost, if they
| could point me in the right direction, I got nowhere and was
| made to feel like I was a bother. So while it's easy for me to
| believe that these online mattress companies are marketing
| companies glueing foam together, maybe this is what we needed
| to make an outdated industry improve.
| jacob019 wrote:
| Forgive me if this is off-topic. I am currently in the market for
| a queen size mattress in a box. The last one that I bought on
| Amazon was perfect, it cost about $300.
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F8NNL8X It is no longer available.
| Now it seems that you can get a decent one for under $250. Here
| are some that I found:
|
| Ashley: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0777K9RGX
|
| Vibe: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074NDQ143
|
| PrimaSleep: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075T6BNC2
|
| Anyone here have any suggestions?
| dang_dumb wrote:
| Zinus sleep - I have a king hybrid mattress from them and it's
| fantastic. https://www.zinus.com
| dublinben wrote:
| The Green Tea mattress from Zinus is a popular choice, and
| well-regarded. It's right at your price point.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Q7EPSHI/
| werber wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Zinus-Memory-Green-Mattress-Queen/dp/...
|
| I've had several friends go out and buy it after a night on
| mine. I've had it for ~3 years and haven't noticed any
| degradation. After trying much more expensive (and heavily
| advertised) ones other people own, I can't really tell the
| difference.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| I have the same mattress. Almost never give it a second
| thought, which is what I really want in a mattress. Some
| reviews complain of a fishy smell but I didn't encounter it
| with mine but there are enough reviews with that complain
| that I wonder if there are multiple manufacturing pipelines,
| one of which leads to a fishy smelling mattress.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I bought an Avocado mattress in the strength of Consumer
| Reports' recommendation and, while it's certainly not the
| cheapest option, it is very comfortable.
| wycy wrote:
| I have the AmazonBasics mattress:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C49ZPQG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
|
| It's my guest room mattress but I do sleep in the guest room
| occasionally, and when I do I sleep better than my normal
| mattress. That said, the edge support isn't great. Being close
| to the edge makes it feel almost like you're at a slight slope.
| Still, no regrets for $250.
|
| Edit: I'm 6ft / 165 lb. It's possible that it would be less
| supportive for heavier weights.
| giarc wrote:
| I agree with the edge support and foam mattresses. A friend
| of mine asked me about whether he should recommend a foam
| mattress for his grandparents. I specifically said no because
| of the edge support. I fear someone with mobility issues
| might not be able to support themselves if they were to sit
| on the corner.
| ropiwqefjnpoa wrote:
| I like companies like Sharetown, they help prevent things from
| just ending up in a landfill and they make money doing it.
| There's a computer recycling company near me that does pretty
| well reselling equipment sent to them for recycling. They destroy
| drives when instructed to, but will wipe the rest and resell
| intact running servers and workstations.
|
| It's nice working with them because I know the equipment will
| most likely find a home.
| 0xff00ffee wrote:
| I gotta admit, there's one tiny bit of this that I think is kinda
| cool: the secondary "Sharetown" ecosystem does sound like an
| "afterburner" of sorts for unused product, and I much rather see
| products be up-or-re-cycled than tossed in landfill. I think
| there is a much larger market for this, especially as TFA says
| about the huge increase in returns.
| [deleted]
| droithomme wrote:
| It's amazing anyone buys used mattresses. The likelihood of
| getting bedbugs and pounds of a stranger's skin flakes is very
| high. Gross!
| jldugger wrote:
| A hotel is basically a gigantic used mattress store with
| massive churn.
| acd wrote:
| Online shopping is not that sustainable. Current concerns are
| returns. First you have the carbon emissions of the first package
| delivery then the return package carbon emissions plus the waste.
| The waste comes that is more expensive to handle return products
| than to simply throw them.
|
| What I mean it's more eco friendly to have big batch shipments to
| stores than individual small packages sent by post.
|
| A normal physical store is usually more environmentally friendly
| than online shopping.
| Animats wrote:
| No, driving the SUV to the store usually uses more fuel than
| the entire supply chain to get to the store.
| sergers wrote:
| I bought a foam mattress off amazon canada.
|
| Decided to return it.
|
| Surprisingly amazon.ca doesnt offer large item pickup like USA,
| and expected to return a king size expanded 10" thick foam
| mattress to the local post office.
|
| I called them asking wtf, how am I supposed to return it.
|
| They gave a me refund, and told me donate destroy it myself or
| even just keep it.
|
| I decided to keep it
| deftnerd wrote:
| It feels like there might be other possibly uses of old or
| unwanted foam mattresses. Perhaps they can be cut down to
| standard sizes for home insulation batting? As insulation between
| raised garden bed containers and the ground? Insulation between
| the ground and a fish tank in an aquaponics setup?
|
| While there might be better solutions for all of those things, if
| these materials are going to end up in the landfill and can be
| provided for almost no cost, it seems like a waste to not utilize
| the resource.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Although it's a bit of work to cut the foam layers into
| hundreds of little blocks, you can turn an unwanted foam
| mattress into a decent bean bag.
| bsanr wrote:
| I'd thought I'd get around the madness of mattress shopping by
| using just the technique mentioned in the article here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22377160
|
| At least, until I found something I liked. I purchased a Purple
| 3, thinking that if I loved it, I'd just stick with it. I _did_
| love it, but I couldn 't justify spending $2k on a twin(!). I
| returned it, and purchased from another company for ~$700. I
| didn't like it as much as the Purple, but when I went to begin
| the return, I was told that there _was_ no return process, and
| that I could "move the mattress to a different room, or donate
| it." Two days later, I received a refund for the full purchase
| amount. That ended my journey; no awesome mattress at any price
| beats "decent and free."
|
| As much as I appreciate getting a new mattress for zilch, the
| experience made me extremely wary. Was my mattress so cheaply-
| made that the manufacturer could afford to give them away? What
| was up? So I did some research. It turns out that the mattress
| industry is a racket. The markups are ludicrous; almost every
| mattress on the market costs, at most, a few hundred dollars to
| make. And then it's also impossible to comparison shop because
| "models" differ based on retailer by one or two small features;
| that means no price-matching, if you can even tell what you're
| buying.
|
| These are the kinds of things that make people suspicious of the
| way the economy is set up. It should be easy to find out what
| you're purchasing, and then to pay a fair price for it. Instead
| you have entire manufacturing-retail chains built on obfuscation
| and able to eat untold amounts in lost product.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Casper is losing money in large part because of returns so I'm
| not so sure!
| chrshawkes wrote:
| You're the reason my Casper stocks seem to be a waste of money.
| :)
| mherdeg wrote:
| There was a pretty popular recent post on reddit's
| /r/unethicallifeprotips about this recently.
|
| It's beginning to become common knowledge that paying for a
| mail-order mattress is often optional. By choosing not to
| request a refund (and keep the product), you are subsidizing
| the purchases of everyone else who does.
|
| If you squint this kind of looks like the CyberRebate business
| model and I wonder how much longer it'll be sustainable.
|
| (The industry also has amusing quirks like
| https://www.vox.com/2017/9/23/13153814/casper-sleepopolis-la...
| )
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _I purchased a Purple 3, thinking that if I loved it, I 'd just
| stick with it. I did love it, but I couldn't justify spending
| $2k on a twin_
|
| I don't understand this -- you loved the mattress and you knew
| the price when you ordered, so what other outcome did you
| expect if you couldn't justify the price to yourself even if
| you loved it? It seems that you'd have been better off going
| with a more affordably priced mattress from the beginning like
| a Leesa or Casper?
|
| Otherwise you're just guaranteeing yourself a lot of hassle to
| send back a mattress that you know you don't want to pay for.
| Plus, now you know there's a more comfortable mattress out
| there that's out of your price range. It's kind of like test
| driving an $80K Acura when all you can afford is a $30K Honda,
| sure you may love the Acura, but if you can't afford it anyway,
| why bother?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Probably more along the lines of, "if I love it _thiiiiiis_
| much, then I 'm willing to spend the $2k, but I only loved it
| _thiiis_ much, so I couldn 't justify the expenditure."
| simonsarris wrote:
| 1. Testing cars you can't afford is awesome. Knowing the full
| range of experience in a good can be very enlightening. How
| much better is a $10,000 camera from a $1,000 camera, or $400
| wine from $4? I used to run a tasting group which is
| basically a way to pool money and try liquors that are vastly
| out of our individual price range and I highly recommend it.
| You can try expensive cars and mattresses for free, that's
| even better!
|
| 2. What's wrong with thinking "Well it is great, but its not
| $2000 great." You aren't beholden to the thoughts you had
| about how worth-it it might be before you tried it.
| ghaff wrote:
| >What's wrong with thinking "Well it is great, but its not
| $2000 great." You aren't beholden to the thoughts you had
| about how worth-it it might be before you tried it.
|
| Nothing. But I read the GP comment more along the lines of
| "It was as great as I imagined it would be but it was still
| too much money"
|
| Sure, if you can, if something expensive is good but not as
| great as you hoped it would be for the money, return it.
| But it's a bit hard for me to see buying (not test driving)
| something that, however great it is you're not keeping it.
| megablast wrote:
| > Testing cars you can't afford is awesome.
|
| How much does testing cars cost the dealer? Compare it to
| the mattress.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Testing cars you can 't afford is awesome_
|
| I can see the value in test driving a car a class above
| your level so you can see what you're missing. When I was
| looking for a car, I tried out a low-end Acura in addition
| to a high-end Honda, but those are $35K and $45K cars.
|
| I could probably justify the $10K jump in price if the
| Acura was spectacular, but no matter how much I love an
| $80K car, I could never justify buying one.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was speaking at a company event at the BMW facility in
| SC. We did some driving on their track. My takeaway was:
|
| 1. I do get the attraction of some of these cars.
|
| 2. Nope. Not worth it to me even though I could afford
| them if I wanted to.
| wahern wrote:
| > Was my mattress so cheaply-made that the manufacturer could
| afford to give them away?
|
| Shipping is expensive, especially for something as heavy and
| bulky as an uncompressed foam mattress. Among other things, I
| have a free stroller (sans cup holder) and a life-time supply
| of Feather razor blades (they accidentally sent the bulk
| packaging) because Amazon didn't want to pay for return
| shipping.
|
| Factor in the risks and headaches of trying to resell a used
| mattress, and I can easily see never wanting to take one back
| even if it means having to factor into the regular price the
| costs of finicky buyers. The mattress market is weird:
| http://freakonomics.com/podcast/mattress-store-bubble/
| [deleted]
| wycy wrote:
| Part of the crazy markup in the mattress industry might be in
| the non-returnability of them. Manufacturers need to price in
| the fact that some % of them will be returned (read: given away
| for free) because no one wants a used mattress that might have
| bed bugs or other unknown substances.
| giarc wrote:
| But I wonder how many people buy a mattress, never open it,
| "return it for refund" then just resell a "unused, unopened
| mattress"?
| magic_beans wrote:
| I bought a casper mattress. I now wish I had started
| "return proceedings" and gotten a refund, because it sounds
| like they just tell you to donate it.
| blackearl wrote:
| It's also impossible to comparison shop because most people buy
| them once a decade, you don't really break them in for weeks,
| and sleeping is so subjective it's impossible to take anyone's
| word for it.
|
| I bought a queen for around $600. It's fine. Improving sleep
| has been more about exercising more often, decreasing screen
| time, and reading/meditating before bed.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was doing some research because I'm going to have to buy
| one for a vacation house later this year. On the one hand, I
| don't want to just randomly choose an expensive purchase. On
| the other hand, truth be told, I spend a quarter to a third
| of nights in various hotel rooms and they're mostly "fine."
|
| And I've personally had everything from a waterbed to a
| (high-end) futon in my own house.
|
| So I know I don't want something really crappy but so long as
| I don't go off in some weird direction or really cheap out,
| I'm sure I'll be just fine.
| gumby wrote:
| I went with ikea for the vacation house. It is perfectly
| adequate (for us -- I know this is subjective) and
| realistically we only spend perhaps 50 nights a year there.
| blackearl wrote:
| Well according to some of the other comments you can shop
| around for a "free" mattress because it's not worth
| returning. Just make you destroy it by leaving it
| somewhere, maybe like a vacation home.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure I would count on that :-) I'm also not sure
| how I feel about the foam mattresses. That's one type of
| mattress I don't have a lot of experience sleeping on and
| my initial reaction in the store was it was "different"
| to a degree that I wasn't sure what to make of it.
|
| Also, I tend to be hot generally including when sleeping.
| From what I've read, a foam mattress may not be a great
| choice given that.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| If you sleep hot, memory foam is what you want to stay
| away from. You sink down into it and it molds around your
| body.
|
| Non-memory latex foam lets you sleep much cooler because
| you don't sink into it so much. I also tend to be too
| warm and have used latex foam mattresses for the last 20
| years. They have been fine, unlike memory foam.
| megablast wrote:
| You can also get free stuff from the shop by putting it
| in your pocket and leaving.
| post_break wrote:
| Which mattress did you end up liking? I have an OG purple and
| love it, but need one for my spare bedroom.
| 135792468 wrote:
| I didn't read the article but I've worked for one of these
| companies that was a startup and have a local mattress company
| as a client. So a little perspective.
|
| These companies are all marketing companies. There is no
| "science" they literally get rolls of foam from foam makers,
| throw them on in layers and try to find the right combo. I was
| there, I've done it myself.
|
| The companies that end up winning have fantastic marketing,
| like purple, or were early, like Casper.
|
| Markup for foam mattresses in general is close to 2000%.
| Average foam cost for a king mattress was <$50. The old school
| mattress companies are close to The same which is why they have
| stores on every corner.
|
| The industry is dirty as hell and as cut throat as they come.
|
| As far as the returns, a reputable company will send the
| Salvation Army or local equivalent to pick up the mattress and
| it becomes a tax write off for the company. Otherwise like
| others have said they will tell you to keep it. No sense
| bringing it back to the warehouse and in a lot of places it is
| illegal to resell a mattress.
|
| AMA if you want. Fascinating industry.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Indeed. And on top of those hundreds of marketing companies
| pretending to be mattress companies is the even weirder world
| of online mattress _reviewers_ , who are all ensnared in a
| tangle of kickbacks and referrer fees and endorsements. Fast
| Company had a great piece on it a few years ago if you want a
| taste:
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-
| blogg...
| jmpz wrote:
| It's worth reading the article to get context before
| commenting.
|
| What experience do you have to assert "These companies are
| all marketing companies. There is no "science" they literally
| get rolls of foam from foam makers, throw them on in layers
| and try to find the right combo. I was there, I've done it
| myself."
| twunde wrote:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/18/there-are-now-175-online-
| mat... mentions that most of the online companies outsource
| their design and production to one of 4 producers.
| egdod wrote:
| Any thoughts on why markup stays so high if the industry is
| actually cutthroat? Competition should be driving margin way
| down.
| kazinator wrote:
| Could depend on where the markup is and whose margin.
|
| If all those retailers are themselves buying from a small
| number of suppliers, they could be paying a lot of that
| markup, while their own margin is razor thin due to cutting
| each others' throats.
| Zimahl wrote:
| I'm not OP, but I'd guess its because there is a really
| limited market for mattresses. People of course need and
| want them, but the turnover is (or can be) a very long
| time. I have a mattress in our guest bedroom that I used in
| college, over 20 years ago. It could probably be replaced,
| but will probably only get replaced with our main mattress
| when we replace it. It's fine for the minimal guests we
| have or when my wife or I sleep in it when we are sick (and
| don't want to keep the other awake).
|
| So for mattresses you really can't afford low margins if
| you want to stay in business. I can't imagine mattress
| stores sell more than several mattresses a month. As for
| why Casper and Purple mattresses are so much when you are
| supposedly removing the middle-man (the physical stores),
| I'm not sure. Because they can? I don't really understand
| why someone would buy one of their mattresses that you
| can't test out at a store, when you can pay the same price
| at a store and test out all your options.
| nradov wrote:
| Exactly. If you want to save money on a foam mattress you can
| literally just buy one or two pieces of industrial foam and
| cut them to fit your bed. There's no special material, no
| magic formula.
| [deleted]
| on_and_off wrote:
| old (2017) but good link on the mattress madness :
| https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...
|
| yes, mattresses are pretty much a racket.
| spartas wrote:
| Abuse of these mattress return policies is also incentivized when
| new online mattress companies are popping up every month.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/unintended-perk-of-the-online-m...
| [deleted]
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| I love this. I've always thought their guarantee was meaningless
| because almost nobody is going to actually mail back a mattress.
| ska wrote:
| Some of the guarantees, at least when I looked a few years ago,
| include pickup for return. Presumably (cf article) not to
| original location; but still, hard to image something more zero
| risk than this.
|
| With something like a 120 day no-questions asked, no risk
| return I think they are more relying on you getting used to it
| in that amount of time. And huge markup means they can eat
| quite a few too, I suppose.
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