Mattress experts: how do you compare Stearns and Fosters mattresses for the best price?
In this old thread where Burbed readers posted how many millions of dollars they have in assets (come on, we’re in Silicon Valley – who doesn’t have at least a million in stock options?) quite a few of you posted about the wonders of Stearns and Fosters mattresses.
I trust my readers, so I went to a local store and tried them out. Wow, they do seem a bit impressive. I liked the firmest of the firm ones.
But here’s the rub: how do you price compare the mattresses at other stores?
It appears that every store uses a different model name – heck a different collection name – for their mattresses.
Are all of their firm mattresses exactly the same?
How do I shop for this?
Argh!
August 26th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I bought a new mattress last year. It was almost impossible to compare the price in a simple way. Every distributor has different model for the same brand. It is their sale’s tactic. I just gave up price comparison and demanded an 80% discount as risk premium.
August 26th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Go to the Sleep Train. They’ll deliver it the same day if you get there before 2pm and take away your old mattress.
http://www.epinions.com/content_12532485764
August 26th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I’m looking at going to Macy’s – would love a negotiation technique.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:38 am
I bought my mattress at this store called Direct Factory Furniture in Santa Clara.Its across from Sweet Tomatoes and Costco. Anyhow, I had shopped around a bit and found that they had the best prices in the area. Sleep Train, Levitz…they are too expensive
August 27th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Wow – the internet listened to me and responded, this hasn’t happened before. Love the site – if I ever sell my shack, I expect to see it listed here.
While I am a Stearns & Foster owner & love it, I am sure I was taken by the mattress store. From what I hear from friends who have bought high end mattresses, you need to ask for a significant discount and be prepared to walk out of the store if you don’t get it – the salesperson will cave or will call you back later and cave.
Since every store has different names on similar mattresses, it means you can’t compare them, but it also means that if you say “the XXX model at YYY store felt as good as this and it was $200 less”, the salesman can’t dispute what you are saying and can only respond by matching his price.
I think there is a lot of profit built into the higher end mattresses, so they can negotiate.
I believe Macys is having a big labor day sale (shocking) so I am sure the prices will be marked down this weekend.
I wonder if salespeople have more room to negotiate as a mattress specific chain like sleep train as opposed to Macys – anyone know?
Finally, you probably should see if the store has a “comfort guarantee” — after a month with my first Stearns & Foster I was thinking that I should have gone with the next model up, which was firmer. Since the store had a comfort guarantee, I was able to replace what I had with the firmer model for only a few hundred bucks.
August 27th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Actually that’s what caught my attention, the Macy’s sale.
August 28th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Actually, the models are all the same just different names. They stores have a cross-walk and will be able to tell you if you talk to a person.
All the non-dept stores have enormous negotiation flexibility.
The tried and true technique is to go to one mattress store (not Macys), find one or two you like, call 1800mattress, get the best price you can based on the comp, then go back to another mattress chain, tell them what you were offered and see if they can beat it. If they beat 1800 mattress by 10% you did well. Then break them with the “and I want free delivery, free bedframe, and free removal” speech.” This is really quite easy to do since the margins are enormous.
Your other Bay Area resource is the Macy’s furniture outlet in Union City which sells returned mattresses. They are typically cosmetically slightly damaged, and the people paying 3k simply say “nope, take it back” Those go the outlet. The outlet prices are pretty much nuts. King top of the line sets are 600-800. Go check it out. If you can strap it to the top of your car, you can be in and out and on your bed in a couple of hours.
You should also consider the threads on fatwallet about the hotel beds (w, heavenly etc).
August 29th, 2007 at 10:42 am
This is because, about 15-20 years ago, there was a lawsuit against mattress companies and retail stores for price fixing. Rather than cut their prices, they started pulling this renaming scheme to make sure nobody could compare.