Monday, November 11, 2024

Is a Direct to Consumer Mattress Actually Better? 2018 Update

You know what I love about now, as opposed to then? I haven’t had to step into a dingy Chinese take out place to order in years. I don’t have to buy my video games in a shop where the clerk hasn’t a clue, nor have I needed to buy a pair of pants that don’t fit. I can do it all online. I can almost have whatever I want delivered straight to my door, and in the last few years the number of things has risen. The direct to consumer mattress market has grown in leaps and bounds, especially on the last few years. Small start ups with bright ideas and mass market dreams have risen against the mattress juggernauts with their home grown designs. And they have changed the game. These days a lot of the old school mattress suppliers are basing their new mattresses on designs from Saatva, Leesa and Yogabed.

Direct to Consumer Vs Show Room

loom and leafAnd why wouldn’t they? Their mattresses are bad by comparison. The Leesa, with its ability to be everything to everyone, Saatva, with their bespoke quality mattresses at affordable prices and Yogabed, with top notch design work and ridiculously low prices, they are the three to beat. I’m here to tell you why buying from the creator is better than buying from a high street mattress show room, or even from a third party online seller.

leesa If you’ve never had the misfortune of going into a mattress showroom let me describe the experience. The space is huge, there are plush mattresses as far as the eye can see, each more mattress-y than the last. You have a few minutes to yourself, maybe you’ll go straight for a likely looking bed to test it out and when your guard is down they fall upon you, like starved vultures. The mattress salesfolk. They may be nice, they may seem personable, but to them you are a wallet. I get that they make most of their money on commissions, I do, but having to be handled by that kind of employee is always uncomfortable to me. You can see the desperspiration on them, they need to land a sale, and it sullies the whole experience.

Better Mattress?

yogabed That’s really the worst case scenario, I admit, but the direct to consumer model does away with it. You open the site, look down the list of features and buy the mattress. Done and done. I have on occasion had a chat with their support teams, some of the sites have an auto help chat window open up, and have found them all to be knowledgeable and helpful, without being too eager. Navigating most of the sites was a breeze with all of the info on each mattress easy to find.

Next is the point of sale. Most of the high street sellers do so at a huge mark up, it’s why with some savvy negotiations you can get a “Great Deal” on your new mattress. I can attest that no one is silver tongued enough to get a deal as good as the online price. Some sites have noted that for similar mattresses you would be paying as much as three times their online price. These days you can get a perfectly ergonomic design for less than a grand. There is one aspect of the show room that those against the direct to consumer model would bring up, and that is the ability to test the mattress before bringing it home. To that I say the trial period.

The Bonus features in the direct to consumer market are plentiful, the best of which is the trial period. Not one online mattresses seller offers less than seventy five days of mattress testing, with a full refund when you send it back. In addition, most of them will also donate your mattress to a good cause, so even returning a mattress feels good. Add to that a warranty that is a little longer than most, the average is a little over ten years, and you have a solid investment. The biggest caveat to the warranty is that a lot of these companies are new, meaning we do not know if they will be around for a long time. But I think the internet has reached a point of market penetration and ubiquity that we don’t have to worry about another Dot-Com like bubble burst.

An issue you might come across is what to do with your old mattress when you buy your new one. The old brick and mortar stores used to cart them away for you, but now you’re stick with the responsibility. Saatva do offer mattress removal as a service, but it is not standard in the industry, especially considering most other suppliers also give you free delivery. Bar that problem I think you’ll agree that in all other ways the direct to consumer model is the way forward for the industry.

A Direct to Consumer Mattress Is A Better Deal Overall

The direct to consumer mattress market has been growing in leaps and bounds this last few years. There are so many high quality products to choose from, all at extremely competitive prices, among themselves, and much better prices, when compared to the showroom model. It has come to the point where companies that were exclusive to the showroom model have started to make their own foam based direct to your door mattress, and have been trying to price the OG firms out of business. Whatever the future holds we can be assured of amazing quality and great prices in the years to come.


At the very least check out my mega review here.

You can also check out all the individual, detailed reviews below:

Saatva Mattress Review

Leesa Mattress Review

Casper Review

Tuft & Needle Review 

YogaBed Review

Barry W Stanton
Barry W Stanton
Irish born writer who drinks too much caffeine and reads too much Terry Pratchett. I enjoy long walks on the server and Korean cuisine.
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