Bedding Manufacturing: Retail Secrets

First off, since the beginning the industry has created naive consumers.  Do you buy a car without know at least some details about the engine?  Do you buy a new HDTV without knowing the resolution or contrast ratio?  Probably not, but, do you know what kind of spring unit is in your bed, or what the coil count is?  Or, the weight and density of the foam used in construction, Probably NOT!  As a matter of fact, even if you ask the sales person your answer will be vague and avoided.  They don’t want to slow down a sale by going over specs.  You lay on it, it feels good, so you buy it.  I will show you how they get you to buy extra or less, and get you to pay more for it.

Bigger Is Better:   WRONG.  A bed naturally settles and the foam slowly collapses.  So the thicker the bed the faster these “holes” will show up in your bed.  There is a good possibility you have seen bedding 14, 16 or even 18 inches plus on showroom floors at retailers.   Let me ask you this,  When was the last time you seen a 16″ mattress in a hotel?  If you have it is very rare.  The thinner the mattress the longer it will hold up because there is less to collapse, and things like king ridge, boy impressions, roll together or roll off take much longer to show up.  The 12″ area, give or take an inch or so, is the best place to be in….just like hotel mattresses..

Pillow Tops:  Sales Gimmick.  In general, most pillow tops have very little extra foam in them over a Plush model, but is sold for 2 to 3 hundred dollars more.  What you need to do is, find the feel you like in a mattress.  Laying on them for less than a minute does not help you find this feel.  There is something called “Surface Comfort”.  This is there, because most people bed hunting don’t lay on the bed long enough to get through this layer.  Lay on a bed for close to 10 minutes to get its feel.  If you like a pillow top, move UP one model in a line up, and lay on the plush.  Feel will be very close to the same, and probably 100 to 200 cheaper than the pillow top.

Single Sided Beds:  Ummm….really?  Half a bed? And Guess what!  Almost the same price as a 2 sided bed.  Heres the Deal.  Half the Bed, Half the Life expectancy…and probably less.   A good bed should easily last you 10 years or more, a single sided will be more like 3 to 5.   You may not know this, but your mattress does need maintenance.  It should be flipped, 3 months later, rotated, and then flipped again in  another 3 months.  You can’t do this to a single sided bed, you can only rotate.  So the bed collapses much faster than a 2 sided mattress.

Picking the right bed:  You, or you and your partner, need the right bed to get a good night sleep.  So, first thing you need to do is decide how much you can spend.  The best valued beds will be in the 800 to 1100 dollar range for a set.  More than that and you could be paying to much, less than that and you are buying cheap materials and won’t be happy in the long run anyway.   After you have settled on a price, SHOP AROUND!!  Don’t just go to one place and pick a bed.  While shopping around, lay on the beds, again for several minutes at a time.  If you need a new bed, just about any bed on a showroom floor is going to feel good.  So get a good feel for the beds, spending some time on this will help you save money, and get the bed that you, and your partner, will enjoy for years to come.