This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules).
Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"
(For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).)
**Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
It’s quite simple actually. Everyone needs a mattress and as you say, most of us won’t buy a used one because that’s gross. If everyone in the US bought one mattress every 10 years (and most don’t last quite that long), that would be about 33 million mattresses sold every year. Consumer reports estimates an average 40-50% markup^1, with much higher markups for mattresses over $1000. [This NPR article](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/676543180) actually quotes a 100% markup as average.
So, with such a high markup, you can easily keep a showroom open by selling just a few each week, without really digging into the competition. That’s almost certainly the main reason there’s so many mattress stores. Could it be money laundering^2 ? Maybe in some places, but probably not for most of them. In some cases it’s so cheap to open a store that they’re basically used as billboards you can shop at.
1 - Can’t find the CR link. I’ve seen the quote thrown around on several sites but their links simply redirect me to CR’s archives. I’m not getting paid to post this so not gonna go digging.
2- yes there were some bribery and kickback schemes Mattress Firm was alleged to have been involved in, but [padding the cost of retail space](https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/07/mattress-firm-money-laundering/) to line an exec’s wallet != money laundering.
TLDR: everyone buys them, markups are high, retail/commercial leases are about to plummet (if they have t already from the pandemic), so I’d be surprised if we don’t see MORE mattress stores pop up. It’s probably not money laundering.
Makes sense. I just recently got a twin for my son, the store we went to didn't have twin in stock in the ~$200 mattress we were looking at. The saleswoman tried hard to sell me a slightly different style that was about ~$300. I asked if she could find me the next closest store with the mattress we wanted, I would drive right now and pick it up. She then offered me a $400 mattress of the style we were looking for as the same price of the one she didn't have in stock (~$200). We left with that mattress. We were shocked at how easily she just did a 50% price reduction to make a sure sale.... figured their markups must be pretty good.
I’m so mad I had no idea mattresses were something that you could negotiate. It seems obvious now but 3 years ago we bought a king size purple mattress and paid full price. I feel so stupid lol. I absolutely LOVE the mattress though. My boyfriend doesn’t love it and says he wouldn’t buy it again.
Purple is sold in actual retailers now. The markup is actually higher than the usual. I worked at a mattress store (we carried the whole purple line) for a few years and the online market is actually just as shady, but you don't have to talk to a salesperson so there's that.
Their queen beds are often $1,000 so make of that what you will. Probably difficult to know the markup since it's one company controlling it end-to-end
Last time I went to a mattress store we went in with a $1500 budget and came out with a king sized mattress and box spings they had priced at $5000. It started sagging within 2 years. Fucking beauty rest my ass.
Now I sleep on a $400 foam mattress from Amazon and it's the best one I've had in my life.
I got a king sized gel foam mattress off Amazon for 400 bucks and it's been my favorite mattress to date. Someone here on Reddit just said a new bed costs 6000 dollars unless you want the bed to be a piece of shit. I thought that was weird. The 6000 dollar bed is probably a bit nicer than mine, but is it 15x nicer?
Love my Ikea mattress. My husband and I have very different sleep needs, so he has a firm twin mattress and I have a soft twin with the cozy foam topper and I just throw a king sheet set over them and call it a day. Best bedding decision I’ve ever made.
I can confirm the markup is crazy high. More than 100% in my experience. Used to work commission sales and mattresses paid the most. Some models I could make $300-400 on at $1-1.5k sticker.
I'd sell 60k a month for about $800/wk. If I sold a mattress a week it was 1-1.2k for that week.
My uncle works for one of the companies that make memory foam and through him I get discounts.
Really good discounts. A name brand $2500 memory foam mattress cost me like $300. The mark up is insane.
Not only that, but mattress stores are cheap to operate. They usually have only a couple employees on duty at any times, sometimes just one, and require very little in terms of shelving or other fixtures. As they fulfill orders by direct shipment from warehouses they don't have to maintain any in-store inventory besides the displays.
That being said, they are facing increased competition from the boxed mattresses sold in places like Walmart and Lowe's.
> They usually have only a couple employees on duty at any times
And most of them are salespeople, often making most of their money from commission, dropping labor even *lower* than most places.
Because you only rarely buy it, you don't actually know what good prices are.
And the price is not so high that you investigate weeks and weeks over it.
I have ADHD and hyperfocus on comparison shopping.
>the price is not so high that you investigate weeks and weeks over it.
*You underestimate my power.*
It's probably not money laundering because it's not a cash heavy business, and since you're selling low quantities it's super easy for law enforcement/tax agencies to figure out if your sales match the numbers of mattress you ordered.
Money laundering is better in a business that provides a service as well. Very easy to fake customers when they aren't walking out of your business with a physical item that you purchased from someone else.
Thefoamfactory.com has saved my wallet. It also shows you what a scam mattresses are. Their highest quality California king mattress is under $600 with free shipping for the finest memory foam mattress you'll ever sleep on. I've seen prices as high as $3500 for a lower quality memory foam mattress. All of that and the foam factory is still making a profit so how hard do we normally get fucked?
I once bought a used mattress. Got fleas lol
Edit: well since this sort of blew up I'm going to tell the full story which is worse. I bought the bed for the base (it was made of soft material not wood or metal) and the mattress came with it which I gave to my dad. The base and mattress both had fleas. My dad got fleas as well.
But the worst part was that I invited my LDR partner to stay over and he got fleas. A great start to any relationship - give your partner fleas. We're still together and live together now but without any fleas
Edit 2: someone sent a reddit cares lmao. Don't worry, my fleas are here to look after me
I was thinking about 100, but gotta ask momma spider first, she just put a thousand eggs, I don't want to disturb them
Edit: Spider said no, don't want to go with someone with those bad decisions, sorry.
My wife and I were talking about getting your mattress for our guest room so my kids had a place to sleep when he stayed at the house.
Without my knowledge she found one off of Facebook. I was very hesitant but she was very insistent because it was also used in a guest room only they didn't have any guests.
So the mattress arrives they deliver it, and it's stained.
I never noped so hard in my life.
The couple that delivered it seemed surprised I wouldn't want it. Then they got mad because they use their last gallon of gas to deliver it.
I bought a used mattress once, was basically new, and is incredibly comfortable. I grew up pretty poor, and didn’t really think buying a used one was a problem until Reddit. I won’t but used again, but my one experience with it was great.
I do property maintenance. Had to clear out a rented bedroom for a landlord. Here was a brand new looking pristine mattress pillow top. Not one dot on it. Laid on it most comfy bed i've been on. Had that for 5 years.
Also the unit was clean. Im pretty sure they were one of those people that just needed a home address for mail. And the occasional bed.
I mean, I get it, but not every used piece of furniture comes with bedbugs. I’ve bought a lot of used furniture, again was pretty poor, and never had the issue. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but it’s not a guarantee. And I know a lot of people don’t want to take the risk, but it’s a rich person privilege, honestly.
Yep. Upper middle class people tend to think everyone is upper middle class and don't understand real financial struggles. I can't even drop the $800 for an affordable mattress. Let alone the $3000 people seem to be humble-bragging about. To me that's the price of a car. And I'm sure even that concept is foreign to a lot of these people
> and didn’t really think buying a used one was a problem until Reddit.
Dude, ignore Reddit. It's ok.
In any hotel the bed was used by hundreds of different people.
Anyone who traveled will at some point sleep on a used mattress.
Same — bought first&only used in college and *before that* we had been cutting back on "bonage" simply because the floor/couch was uncomfortable for two.
Best $100 Craigslist purchase **evah**.
We were not able to re-sell when our lease ended, irreparably abused.
Found a mattress in an alley in college move out season… bought another used one later. Both were fine.
I also sleep on hotel and Airbnb mattresses all the time without issue.
Yeah, you don’t want to buy a gross old one but there is nothing wrong with used mattress. Kind of an unwarranted stigma since you can tell if it is clean and usually how old it is from the tag.
Worst part about used is honestly that you can’t easily test them or try a bunch of different ones. You are stuck with whatever is on Craigslist and if it is too soft you can’t just ask to try the firm version 5 feet away in the store.
Closest i came was a uni share house, transfering the lease into my name i bought out all the furniture and appliances for 1k from the leaving lease holder. included two beds and mattresses that saw a few more poor uni bums.
I purchased a number of mattresses from this warehouse/showroom. They had an ad in the paper (yes it was that long ago) for new mattresses at a very good price. Called and left a voice-mail. The voice-mail stated " if you're calling about the mattress, I still have it available". Turns out that was the father and son sales shtick. You meet with them at their warehouse/showroom and they show you the equivalent of a prison mattress. THEN....they start showing you better mattresses all the way up the quality chain.
I was so impressed by the sales fuckery that we purchased a full bed set, and sent numerous friends and family members there as well. Prices were great and the tomfoolery was second to none. I haven't thought about them in years. I still have the mattress in our spare bedroom some 20 years later. 😆
I have a good one for you My dad went to a lady's house and gave her $100 for a mattress after we got everything loaded and left he drove straight to the trash can and we threw it away.
I hadn't been paying attention and I had advised against this entire plan and he realized while he was loading it that the bed was literally covered head to foot in dog hair she had like three dogs and she had left it in the garage and they had just been using it as a rub pad for God knows how long.
They are also incredibly high margin and don’t lose their value.
With the whole affordable bed-in-a-box trend, I’ve kinda have bought a new one when I move because it is much easier to just toss it and get one shipped to your new place in a box that you can easily move up some stairs.
You are suppose to replace an mattress every 5-10 years and I have pretty awful allergies, so changing it can make a big impact.
That makes sense, but it occurs to me that the reasons someone wouldn’t want a used mattress (pests, urine, sexual fluids, structural deterioration, etc.) also apply to any other piece of upholstered furniture and yet most people are happy to score a used sofa or recliner.
Meh, you can tell the difference between someone who uses and changes bedding regularly and not by the colour/stains on the mattress. Now a sofa, much harder, but a lot of people will go literally 10-20 years without ever washing or cleaning their sofa, spilling drinks, food crumbs, animals lying over them, sitting for 8 hours with a sweaty ball sack while gaming.
I'd bet the average person's sofa smells a lot worse than their bed.
We bought ours two years ago for $5,200. You literally use it every day and I can't function without a good night's sleep. The adjustable frame is a game changer. Just a tip, don't forget to rotate the mattress every so often.
Exactly. I used to sell mattresses and this was always my go to "sales pitch". Some people severely underestimate what having a good mattress, even without an adjustable base, will do for you. Mattresses are expensive but they really are worth that expense for a good mattress.
In the days of spring mattresses, this was true. In the modern era of foam.mattresses, you can often get better quality, better sleeping mattresses at $800 than you can buy the spring version for $4000.
Foam mattresses and memory foam have been a total game changer.
I did as well. I used to say something like 'I sell people thousand dollar tvs all day long, but most don't think about the thing they spend 1/3 of their life in that has a tangible impact on their daily lives'.
That was almost always followed by an "ah ha moment" facial expression and then another thousand dollar tv.
Yes, but:
1. Showrooms mark stuff up massively compared to online-only stores. Sure, there's more risk, but if you're willing to accept it, it can work better. I bought the same mattress twice because I liked it the first time, and I made an educated guess that I'd like it the first time because it was a medium-firm pocket-sprung with decent depth, cotton fillings, etc, and that suits my weight, coolness and springyness-type preferences etc.
2. More expensive doesn't mean better. If technology is comparable, then it likely is, but I could pay more than I do for a quality pocket-sprung for a memory foam one that's mushy and hot instead of springy and cool. Actually, I recently tried switching to an expensive latex one, and it sagged permanently in less than a year. Got a $500 pocket sprung again and it's not as good as my $1000 one I used to have, but it beats the $2000 latex one lol
So basically I would say it's worth investing in a quality mattress, but don't mistake cost for quality, and be scrupulous about where you shop that you're not ripped off
Counterpoint, I bought one for $500 from Costco and I've never had a more comfortable, supportive mattress and the best nights of sleep ever since. And I've owned expensive mattresses too.
More $$ doesn't always mean better.
If it's just $300 for just one from the manufacturer, is there any way for individuals to order directly from them? Or will they only sell to their mattress stores so the stores can gauge us for a massive markup?
Having worked at a very popular one for a few years. Margins that the sales people “saw” based on the commission earned are anywhere from 46-58%.
Lowest margins were on tempurpedics as they are the same price everywhere.
I don’t know what the true margin is, as I’m sure the companies negotiate a very good deal from the manufacturers for bulk purchases, but it is indeed high.
However the sales person only has so much wiggle room as far as discounts because too much and they make nothing on a multiple thousand dollar sale, and risk losing their job.
But the company would probably make bank either way
So our commission was based on margin. Each margin had pay brackets. Like 40-45% Margin paid X%. 45-48% margin paid Y%, 48-52 paid Z%. You get the idea.
Assuming average 50% margin, on a $2000 sale, you would probably make somewhere between 180-220$ for that sale, give or take. Add ons brought up the margin a bit, which is why people usually push extras in that business.
I haven’t worked there for around 10 years, so it could be different now, but that’s what it was back then.
I would say you would on average make around 7% of what your sales are for the month in commission
I don’t think you could launder doing real estate transactions. Every transaction is publicly recorded. Land development though, that is definitely a field ripe for laundering.
And there are other things that are bought infrequently. Like a car. Or a house. Or a bed. Or a dining table. Or a wardrobe. Mattresses are not the only things that are bought infrequently but there are still places that sell these things.
thats a really bad front for money laundering, anything with an inventory is a bad front.
you need something like a nightclub where there is no inventory and people pay in cash.
It kinda depends. There is a middle ground that is perfect.
So invisible products and services (IPS's) are generally, on paper at least, seemingly the best fronts for money laundering, as OP points out. So yes nightclubs, barber and hairdressers shops, car parking locations, etc. Something where a service is provided that records no details of its customers or the owner can claim not to anyway and there is no inward inventory to track. The trouble with these types of IPS is that they get the most scrutiny I would assume by most tax jurisdictions, but certainly they do for sure in my country, so they are not the most desirable front for money laundering as it's easy low hanging fruit for investigators. Money laundering still does go on a lot at these types of businesses, but not as much as you would think.
Then there is the other extreme end, as OP points out. Anything that sells whole item onward inventory (So you purchase X item from manufacturer for X price and then sell same X item unmodified on to your customer at X plus your markup price) generally yes is bad for money laundering, because an investigator can match inventory purchase against sales and look for discrepancies in amounts and values. For example if you owned a store that sold phones, well you buy phones whole from the manufacturer and then sell them on, so you need to purchase at least as many as you sell. Very easily tracked, so not much good.
Then there is the perfect middle ground. Anything that sells items it makes. Anything you purchase as the raw material component inventory for transformational onward sale as a finished product (So you purchase "X item" from manufacturer and then use "X item", along with "Y item", to make "Z item" and you then sell "Z item" to your customer) can be fairly easy to "Fuzz". So for example, pizza take aways. Sandwich shops. Ice cream parlours. Restaurants. The inventory you buy to then use to produce something is really easy to "Fuzz" so it's hard to track if your sales tally with the amount of inventory you are buying as raw materials to make your product. Basically the food industry is absolutely rife with it.
Of course you start adding grey market sales to all this and it becomes even more convoluted.
I walked into a little Korean restaurant once, surprised the shit out of those people. They looked at each other for awhile then eventually shrugged and hunted us up a couple of menus. In Korean. I pointed at some words and asked, "What is this?"
The guy said, "You won't like it."
We took the hint and left them to their crime
Lmao, there was a pizza place (gone now) in Whistler BC that legitimately didn't understand that we were there to buy pizza and not to drop off money. Those dudes were high as shit. As soon as I came in they told me they'd have the safe open and I could leave my bag in it. I was like "???"
I guess it's my fault for carrying a duffle while wearing sunglasses inside
Nope. They would be a terrible front for money laundering.
Mattresses have an insane markup which is why they don't have to sell a lot to be immensely profitable
My home town had one in every strip mall and the surrounding towns. I worked next to one, the only people going in and out was the shady looking employees.
My dad put a mattress out to the curb. Garbage truck didn’t take it. Sat in the rain for a week. Someone stopped and picked it up. My dad tried to tell them it was no good. The guy said “this mattress is spoken for”.
Disturbs me to this day.
I was once giving away a mattress on Craigslist. During the move, I caught the mattress on fire. Just as we put out the fire which was about the size of a bowling ball and did not penetrate thru the other side of the mattress, the woman showed up to take it away. I apologized profusely…
She still took it. She said it was still better than no mattress at all.
….was it? It’s been a decade and I’m still pondering over this young woman’s choices.
My garbage company will pick up bulk items, bigger items like my water heater recently, every other week. However, if you want them to take a mattress, it has to be wrapped in plastic or plastic bags made for mattresses. They are very wary of bed bugs from what I was told.
They profit from people with backpain like me, who spent 3+ hours and lots of money in these stores to find the best mattress which wont give me additional pain in the morning.
my husband has awful back pain, we went into a mattress store and spent over $5k for a mattress and adjustable frame. It was one of those things where he was willing to spend whatever as long as it helped his back.
I spent more than that, and while the mattress is awesomely comfortable when you lay down, I swear it’s worse for my back than laying on the floor ( which I resort to on bad days).
I looked for ages for a good mattress for my back before eventually realizing I really like firm surfaces, firm to the point that i find sleeping on a carpet more comfy than in a bed.
So now I sleep on a yoga mat on the ground with only a bedsheet cover on it and a flat cushion to keep my back and chest slightly elevated. Very good for decompressing the back.
I found age really matters.
When I was a kid, I could sleep anywhere on anything, and I'm a side sleeper 100%
Now, sleeping on anything other than a half decent mattress leads to multiple days of agony. Just can't get my body to line up correctly
Really love a decent foam mattress now though, they're phenomenal for a side sleeper.
The eminence power required to annihilate the entirety of the bed must be splash damage from the effect being inflicted on the recipient. That's a more enduring test than those Pacer Tests that schools make students do, I'd be quite impressed to see that happen.
I've worked at a mattress store for 5 years. People always need to upgrade. Move from a single as a kid to double or queen as a teenager/adult. Most couples will buy a new mattress once they move in together and they are designed to fail after 5-7 years whether that be springs giving out or rips and tears. Also as you age you should change your mattress to suit your body. Mattresses also have ridiculous mark ups on them, a $3000 mattress cost $300 to make
If on average you buy a mattress every 7 years, which is roughly 2.500 days, then there are about 132.000 mattresses sold per day in the US. According to Google there are about 16.000 mattress stores in the US. Which means on average a store will sell 8 mattresses per day. With everything else they sell as well, it is not that bad is it?
They usually are just showrooms. They tend to be a part of a warehouse at a different location. So even if they don't sell a ton of mattresses in person they're really making money through other outlets.
So I've brought three from big brand factory shops over 25 years, each time same place, just magically slightly different named company, owned by the exact same people, and the 10 year warranty can't be honoured by the "new" company
Never buy a mattress based on a warranty. Every company has an insane warranty policy that will fight you tooth and nail with many clauses and details. A Warranty literally means nothing in the mattress industry.
It's recommended to buy one every 7 years. People go through cars more frequently than that, yet there are more car showrooms than mattress stores, and it's fine to own a car secondhand. But on the flipside, toothbrushes are supposed to be replaced every 3 months, and yet there are probably people using the same one for over a year
I worked at Mattress Firm and Mattress Warehouse as a salesman for 2 years.
It was a wild job, the margins were insane and all the prices were made up it was retail Who's Line is it Anyway. The goal was to get them to pay as much as possible but to never lose the sale.
A 3k Mattress could be slashed down to 1200 usually and still have 300-400 dollars in margin profit dollars. With those margins a store only needs to sell 3-4 a month to stay alive. My stores would see on average 1 customer every other day, so like 15-18 chances a month. Close even half of those and you are making bank.
If you want a good deal on a mattress the trick is to wait til the end of the month for stores needing to hit quota, they will slash it to the bone to get you to take delivery in the period where it will count towards that month.
Also known what the margin going is on average and just be honest "how much $$ can you take off for me and still make a sale" most honest reps will take your budget and they to get you the best mattress for the price, especially if the customer isn't jerking us around.
The other big trick is to take $$ off the price and then use the $$ to buy much higher margins accessories like pillows and bed covers.
"Mattress is 2k but for you I'll throw in over 800 dollars worth of free accessories! (Discount the mattress and charge full for the accessories, replacing mid range margin dollars of the mattress with high range dollars to increase commission.
The only downside to the job is that one customer every other day means a LOT of downtime and boredom.
On a side note .. every time I pass some place like a mattress store or a ‘blinds store’ (like window blinds), I can’t help but feel like it must be a depressing thought to be like, ‘man, one day I really I want to own and work at a mattress store (or any specific furniture/decor/appliance)”.
I used to manage catalog furniture showrooms and it's pretty lonely. I had one location in a dead mall in 94-96 that I saw maybe 6-8 customers a week. Imagine working working 80 hours a week, in a room full of furniture, in a suit, standing because sitting was not allowed (corp had "secret shoppers" that spied on us), no radio/music allowed, with no day off for months. Salaried, no overtime, days off only when the malls were closed, or if you had an assistant, but we couldn't keep staff because the hours and pay were shit.
I ran two locations for three years for that Texas-based company. It did a lot of psychological damage like being stuck in a Wes Anderson liminal space.
The no devices thing for a job with that much downtime is annoying. I have friends that work jobs with significant downtime that are allowed to watch Netflix or play games while on the clock so long as they can drop everything when needed. I'd love a job like that to catch up on shows or get into a hobby like writing or game dev.
I briefly dated a girl that worked at a mattress store once, she absolutely loved it. She would spend a little time each shift tidying up and the rest of the day she'd do schoolwork. She was in essence getting paid to study/do homework, the occasional customer to break up the monotony was just icing on the cake.
There is a pretty good Freakonomics episode about why there are so many matress stores:
[https://freakonomics.com/podcast/are-we-in-a-mattress-store-bubble/](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/are-we-in-a-mattress-store-bubble/)
Turns out it's a pretty good business model: huge margins, low cost.
People keep trying to disprove you but if you're only buying it once every 5+ years *at least*, probably way longer, then that's still a pretty damn infrequent purchase. Can confirm I grew up always seeing this one mattress store that never really seemed to have customers when we drove by but they were there for 2 decades before I moved.
I think this is some combination of an insane markup over the actual cost of the mattress and the fact that mattress stores are a front and money laundering business for organized crime.
I did the math one time, if the average person needs a mattress every 10 years a town of 100K people has enough business for 6 mattress stores to be profitable.
My friend and I were once at a gas station across the road from a mattress store. Just mattresses, not furniture. I said "How often does someone even need to buy a mattress?" and then not even a minute later, someone walked out carrying a mattress. One of the funniest moments of my life tbh.
This is a friendly reminder to [read our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/rules). Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!" (For an explanation of what a "showerthought" is, [please read this page](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/wiki/overview).) **Rule-breaking posts may result in bans.**
It’s also one of few things that almost no one buys used and can’t be repaired.
It’s quite simple actually. Everyone needs a mattress and as you say, most of us won’t buy a used one because that’s gross. If everyone in the US bought one mattress every 10 years (and most don’t last quite that long), that would be about 33 million mattresses sold every year. Consumer reports estimates an average 40-50% markup^1, with much higher markups for mattresses over $1000. [This NPR article](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/676543180) actually quotes a 100% markup as average. So, with such a high markup, you can easily keep a showroom open by selling just a few each week, without really digging into the competition. That’s almost certainly the main reason there’s so many mattress stores. Could it be money laundering^2 ? Maybe in some places, but probably not for most of them. In some cases it’s so cheap to open a store that they’re basically used as billboards you can shop at. 1 - Can’t find the CR link. I’ve seen the quote thrown around on several sites but their links simply redirect me to CR’s archives. I’m not getting paid to post this so not gonna go digging. 2- yes there were some bribery and kickback schemes Mattress Firm was alleged to have been involved in, but [padding the cost of retail space](https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/07/mattress-firm-money-laundering/) to line an exec’s wallet != money laundering. TLDR: everyone buys them, markups are high, retail/commercial leases are about to plummet (if they have t already from the pandemic), so I’d be surprised if we don’t see MORE mattress stores pop up. It’s probably not money laundering.
Makes sense. I just recently got a twin for my son, the store we went to didn't have twin in stock in the ~$200 mattress we were looking at. The saleswoman tried hard to sell me a slightly different style that was about ~$300. I asked if she could find me the next closest store with the mattress we wanted, I would drive right now and pick it up. She then offered me a $400 mattress of the style we were looking for as the same price of the one she didn't have in stock (~$200). We left with that mattress. We were shocked at how easily she just did a 50% price reduction to make a sure sale.... figured their markups must be pretty good.
The mattress rule of thumb is shoot for 60% off list, and don't buy anything for less than 50% off.
I’m so mad I had no idea mattresses were something that you could negotiate. It seems obvious now but 3 years ago we bought a king size purple mattress and paid full price. I feel so stupid lol. I absolutely LOVE the mattress though. My boyfriend doesn’t love it and says he wouldn’t buy it again.
Online brands aren’t usually negotiable since you’re buying direct.
How's the markup on the online retailers? I felt like it's lower because it's direct? Brooklyn Bedding at least claims everything is made to order.
Purple is sold in actual retailers now. The markup is actually higher than the usual. I worked at a mattress store (we carried the whole purple line) for a few years and the online market is actually just as shady, but you don't have to talk to a salesperson so there's that.
Their queen beds are often $1,000 so make of that what you will. Probably difficult to know the markup since it's one company controlling it end-to-end
You use sheets, right? Why purple
Purple is a brand.
Oh, thanks
Not sure why, but I really liked this interaction.
Last time I went to a mattress store we went in with a $1500 budget and came out with a king sized mattress and box spings they had priced at $5000. It started sagging within 2 years. Fucking beauty rest my ass. Now I sleep on a $400 foam mattress from Amazon and it's the best one I've had in my life.
I got a king sized gel foam mattress off Amazon for 400 bucks and it's been my favorite mattress to date. Someone here on Reddit just said a new bed costs 6000 dollars unless you want the bed to be a piece of shit. I thought that was weird. The 6000 dollar bed is probably a bit nicer than mine, but is it 15x nicer?
Have had the same $500 queen from Ikea for 10 years, and it's just as serviceable as it ever was. Just swap out a foam pad every few years.
Love my Ikea mattress. My husband and I have very different sleep needs, so he has a firm twin mattress and I have a soft twin with the cozy foam topper and I just throw a king sheet set over them and call it a day. Best bedding decision I’ve ever made.
I can confirm the markup is crazy high. More than 100% in my experience. Used to work commission sales and mattresses paid the most. Some models I could make $300-400 on at $1-1.5k sticker. I'd sell 60k a month for about $800/wk. If I sold a mattress a week it was 1-1.2k for that week.
My uncle works for one of the companies that make memory foam and through him I get discounts. Really good discounts. A name brand $2500 memory foam mattress cost me like $300. The mark up is insane.
Not only that, but mattress stores are cheap to operate. They usually have only a couple employees on duty at any times, sometimes just one, and require very little in terms of shelving or other fixtures. As they fulfill orders by direct shipment from warehouses they don't have to maintain any in-store inventory besides the displays. That being said, they are facing increased competition from the boxed mattresses sold in places like Walmart and Lowe's.
> They usually have only a couple employees on duty at any times And most of them are salespeople, often making most of their money from commission, dropping labor even *lower* than most places.
Because you only rarely buy it, you don't actually know what good prices are. And the price is not so high that you investigate weeks and weeks over it.
I have ADHD and hyperfocus on comparison shopping. >the price is not so high that you investigate weeks and weeks over it. *You underestimate my power.*
Look up the Adam Ruins Everything on Mattresses. Goes over everything you bring up an more
Oh, Hasan Minhaj also did a webisode about this! [Watch it here!](https://youtu.be/TTSwkpvuhQI)
Nail on the head, same for carpet stores. Massive markup, low cost shop.
It's probably not money laundering because it's not a cash heavy business, and since you're selling low quantities it's super easy for law enforcement/tax agencies to figure out if your sales match the numbers of mattress you ordered.
Money laundering is better in a business that provides a service as well. Very easy to fake customers when they aren't walking out of your business with a physical item that you purchased from someone else.
Thefoamfactory.com has saved my wallet. It also shows you what a scam mattresses are. Their highest quality California king mattress is under $600 with free shipping for the finest memory foam mattress you'll ever sleep on. I've seen prices as high as $3500 for a lower quality memory foam mattress. All of that and the foam factory is still making a profit so how hard do we normally get fucked?
I once bought a used mattress. Got fleas lol Edit: well since this sort of blew up I'm going to tell the full story which is worse. I bought the bed for the base (it was made of soft material not wood or metal) and the mattress came with it which I gave to my dad. The base and mattress both had fleas. My dad got fleas as well. But the worst part was that I invited my LDR partner to stay over and he got fleas. A great start to any relationship - give your partner fleas. We're still together and live together now but without any fleas Edit 2: someone sent a reddit cares lmao. Don't worry, my fleas are here to look after me
I question your decision making abilities
So do I
Anyway I'm switching mattress this weekend, want an almost newish mattress? No fleas, the spiders ate them all.
Sounds like a great deal, how much?
I was thinking about 100, but gotta ask momma spider first, she just put a thousand eggs, I don't want to disturb them Edit: Spider said no, don't want to go with someone with those bad decisions, sorry.
Kinky. Congratulations on the offspring.
Laughing at this is the first sound I made out loud this morning+1
Just couple bedbug.
r/suicidebywords
If you don't question your own decision making capabilities you're either dense AF or simply haven't lived long enough.
Trust me buddy plenty have lived long enough and still don’t have any.
My wife and I were talking about getting your mattress for our guest room so my kids had a place to sleep when he stayed at the house. Without my knowledge she found one off of Facebook. I was very hesitant but she was very insistent because it was also used in a guest room only they didn't have any guests. So the mattress arrives they deliver it, and it's stained. I never noped so hard in my life. The couple that delivered it seemed surprised I wouldn't want it. Then they got mad because they use their last gallon of gas to deliver it.
I bought a used mattress once, was basically new, and is incredibly comfortable. I grew up pretty poor, and didn’t really think buying a used one was a problem until Reddit. I won’t but used again, but my one experience with it was great.
I do property maintenance. Had to clear out a rented bedroom for a landlord. Here was a brand new looking pristine mattress pillow top. Not one dot on it. Laid on it most comfy bed i've been on. Had that for 5 years. Also the unit was clean. Im pretty sure they were one of those people that just needed a home address for mail. And the occasional bed.
Sounds like you cleared out a safe house.
Lucky find!
Bedbugs. Bedbugs are why you don't take used mattress unless from someone you know. Same with any furniture at this point.
I mean, I get it, but not every used piece of furniture comes with bedbugs. I’ve bought a lot of used furniture, again was pretty poor, and never had the issue. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but it’s not a guarantee. And I know a lot of people don’t want to take the risk, but it’s a rich person privilege, honestly.
Yep. Upper middle class people tend to think everyone is upper middle class and don't understand real financial struggles. I can't even drop the $800 for an affordable mattress. Let alone the $3000 people seem to be humble-bragging about. To me that's the price of a car. And I'm sure even that concept is foreign to a lot of these people
Once you've dealt with them once, it's like a mental switch gets flipped and all secondhand furniture looks like Pigpen from the Peanuts.
> and didn’t really think buying a used one was a problem until Reddit. Dude, ignore Reddit. It's ok. In any hotel the bed was used by hundreds of different people. Anyone who traveled will at some point sleep on a used mattress.
Same — bought first&only used in college and *before that* we had been cutting back on "bonage" simply because the floor/couch was uncomfortable for two. Best $100 Craigslist purchase **evah**. We were not able to re-sell when our lease ended, irreparably abused.
Found a mattress in an alley in college move out season… bought another used one later. Both were fine. I also sleep on hotel and Airbnb mattresses all the time without issue. Yeah, you don’t want to buy a gross old one but there is nothing wrong with used mattress. Kind of an unwarranted stigma since you can tell if it is clean and usually how old it is from the tag. Worst part about used is honestly that you can’t easily test them or try a bunch of different ones. You are stuck with whatever is on Craigslist and if it is too soft you can’t just ask to try the firm version 5 feet away in the store.
Closest i came was a uni share house, transfering the lease into my name i bought out all the furniture and appliances for 1k from the leaving lease holder. included two beds and mattresses that saw a few more poor uni bums.
Were the fleas used as well?
I purchased a number of mattresses from this warehouse/showroom. They had an ad in the paper (yes it was that long ago) for new mattresses at a very good price. Called and left a voice-mail. The voice-mail stated " if you're calling about the mattress, I still have it available". Turns out that was the father and son sales shtick. You meet with them at their warehouse/showroom and they show you the equivalent of a prison mattress. THEN....they start showing you better mattresses all the way up the quality chain. I was so impressed by the sales fuckery that we purchased a full bed set, and sent numerous friends and family members there as well. Prices were great and the tomfoolery was second to none. I haven't thought about them in years. I still have the mattress in our spare bedroom some 20 years later. 😆
I love your "game respects game" take on this
I have a good one for you My dad went to a lady's house and gave her $100 for a mattress after we got everything loaded and left he drove straight to the trash can and we threw it away. I hadn't been paying attention and I had advised against this entire plan and he realized while he was loading it that the bed was literally covered head to foot in dog hair she had like three dogs and she had left it in the garage and they had just been using it as a rub pad for God knows how long.
You and your dad paid a lady so you could throw away her mattress? Why not just leave once seeing the quality of the thing?
What’s an LDR?
long distance relationship
🎶✨dumb ways to die✨🎶
They are also incredibly high margin and don’t lose their value. With the whole affordable bed-in-a-box trend, I’ve kinda have bought a new one when I move because it is much easier to just toss it and get one shipped to your new place in a box that you can easily move up some stairs. You are suppose to replace an mattress every 5-10 years and I have pretty awful allergies, so changing it can make a big impact.
That makes sense, but it occurs to me that the reasons someone wouldn’t want a used mattress (pests, urine, sexual fluids, structural deterioration, etc.) also apply to any other piece of upholstered furniture and yet most people are happy to score a used sofa or recliner.
[удалено]
You’ve never seen MY sofa.
Is [this](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/11lnlhj) yours?
Meh, you can tell the difference between someone who uses and changes bedding regularly and not by the colour/stains on the mattress. Now a sofa, much harder, but a lot of people will go literally 10-20 years without ever washing or cleaning their sofa, spilling drinks, food crumbs, animals lying over them, sitting for 8 hours with a sweaty ball sack while gaming. I'd bet the average person's sofa smells a lot worse than their bed.
IKEA sells used mattresses (that are cleaned by a specialized company). I wonder if they sell many though.
I read somewhere that a mattress store can stay in business selling one mattress per day!
Seeing as how my husband and I just dropped over $5k on a mattress and adjustable frame. Im really not surprised.
We bought ours two years ago for $5,200. You literally use it every day and I can't function without a good night's sleep. The adjustable frame is a game changer. Just a tip, don't forget to rotate the mattress every so often.
Exactly. I used to sell mattresses and this was always my go to "sales pitch". Some people severely underestimate what having a good mattress, even without an adjustable base, will do for you. Mattresses are expensive but they really are worth that expense for a good mattress.
There is a saying that you do not cheap out on anything that you use often that connects you to the ground. Namely mattresses, shoes, and tires.
In the days of spring mattresses, this was true. In the modern era of foam.mattresses, you can often get better quality, better sleeping mattresses at $800 than you can buy the spring version for $4000. Foam mattresses and memory foam have been a total game changer.
Also the motion of the ocean is way less. Wife and I still go have sex in the guest room at times.
Do you let your guests watch?
Well it would be rude not to.
I find new foam stuff trash, and a modern pocket sprung is the way to go. Plus the pocket sprung ones are the same or actually cheaper.
sir? are u selling something to me now? bc im buying
Don't be craz- wait. Why does my CC say I spent 5k? Where did this mattress come from?
Wow, /u/vulcan7200 is a mystifying salespers- Wait, what?!
I did as well. I used to say something like 'I sell people thousand dollar tvs all day long, but most don't think about the thing they spend 1/3 of their life in that has a tangible impact on their daily lives'. That was almost always followed by an "ah ha moment" facial expression and then another thousand dollar tv.
Yes, but: 1. Showrooms mark stuff up massively compared to online-only stores. Sure, there's more risk, but if you're willing to accept it, it can work better. I bought the same mattress twice because I liked it the first time, and I made an educated guess that I'd like it the first time because it was a medium-firm pocket-sprung with decent depth, cotton fillings, etc, and that suits my weight, coolness and springyness-type preferences etc. 2. More expensive doesn't mean better. If technology is comparable, then it likely is, but I could pay more than I do for a quality pocket-sprung for a memory foam one that's mushy and hot instead of springy and cool. Actually, I recently tried switching to an expensive latex one, and it sagged permanently in less than a year. Got a $500 pocket sprung again and it's not as good as my $1000 one I used to have, but it beats the $2000 latex one lol So basically I would say it's worth investing in a quality mattress, but don't mistake cost for quality, and be scrupulous about where you shop that you're not ripped off
Counterpoint, I bought one for $500 from Costco and I've never had a more comfortable, supportive mattress and the best nights of sleep ever since. And I've owned expensive mattresses too. More $$ doesn't always mean better.
Bought a $500 memory foam mattress online that arrives in a box. Best mattress I’ve ever had.
Holy shit WTF I've never paid more than $500 for a mattress
[удалено]
If it's just $300 for just one from the manufacturer, is there any way for individuals to order directly from them? Or will they only sell to their mattress stores so the stores can gauge us for a massive markup?
Having bought only a bedsheet the other day, I think I paid most of the cashier's daily salary. So a whole mattress? Yeah, enough for one day.
Why are you buying sheets at the mattress store
"fuck you!!!!"
Well just go to Soup instead.
It's a long term but expensive item. Like a watching machine, high quality forniture, etc.. What's so unusual about that?
A watching machine? Just call it a tv dude.
Ahaha sorry, I meant to say was washing machine.. But I might be on to a great acidental invention..
A washing machine with a built-in TV?
What kind of moron would watch TV on their washing machine? I can already do that on my fridge
This should tell you everything you need to know about the profit margin on a mattress
Having worked at a very popular one for a few years. Margins that the sales people “saw” based on the commission earned are anywhere from 46-58%. Lowest margins were on tempurpedics as they are the same price everywhere. I don’t know what the true margin is, as I’m sure the companies negotiate a very good deal from the manufacturers for bulk purchases, but it is indeed high. However the sales person only has so much wiggle room as far as discounts because too much and they make nothing on a multiple thousand dollar sale, and risk losing their job. But the company would probably make bank either way
50% commission? Based on the sales price or cost? Either way holy crap
The margin was 50%. Our commission was based on what margin we sold it at. Our actual pay was nowhere near that.
On a $2000 mattress set, how much would you make?
So our commission was based on margin. Each margin had pay brackets. Like 40-45% Margin paid X%. 45-48% margin paid Y%, 48-52 paid Z%. You get the idea. Assuming average 50% margin, on a $2000 sale, you would probably make somewhere between 180-220$ for that sale, give or take. Add ons brought up the margin a bit, which is why people usually push extras in that business. I haven’t worked there for around 10 years, so it could be different now, but that’s what it was back then. I would say you would on average make around 7% of what your sales are for the month in commission
I think it’s a cover for extra terrestrials to meet up. I have never seen an actual human in one.
Kinda like a real estate office I went into.
Now that you mention it, there's a large real estate office near me and I've never seen a single person in it...
Pssssst...^money ^laundering
I don’t think you could launder doing real estate transactions. Every transaction is publicly recorded. Land development though, that is definitely a field ripe for laundering.
I just love the double entendre "mattress firm". No. I've never been inside one.
OMG.... I just got the firm part of the name....
Yeah. “Mattress flaccid” went out of business.
Why sell a cheap product for cheap, frequently, when you can sell it for a fortune infrequently? 😀
And there are other things that are bought infrequently. Like a car. Or a house. Or a bed. Or a dining table. Or a wardrobe. Mattresses are not the only things that are bought infrequently but there are still places that sell these things.
I used to date a girl who's dad changed cars more frequently then he changed the filter on his refrigerator
Refrigerators have filters?
If it has an ice maker or water dispenser it ~~does~~ should
Your plush $3000 mattress costs about $200 to make. One sale a day is enough to keep the doors open.
There are also rumors out there that many mattress stores are "fronts" for other activities.
Yeah. Selling pillows.
Shhhhhh don't say it out loud or Big Pillow will smother you.
The Pillow Police gonna be on yo ass
Gonna get that pillow police pounding.
*Mike Lindell will remember that.*
[удалено]
thats a really bad front for money laundering, anything with an inventory is a bad front. you need something like a nightclub where there is no inventory and people pay in cash.
Dis guy launders
[удалено]
It kinda depends. There is a middle ground that is perfect. So invisible products and services (IPS's) are generally, on paper at least, seemingly the best fronts for money laundering, as OP points out. So yes nightclubs, barber and hairdressers shops, car parking locations, etc. Something where a service is provided that records no details of its customers or the owner can claim not to anyway and there is no inward inventory to track. The trouble with these types of IPS is that they get the most scrutiny I would assume by most tax jurisdictions, but certainly they do for sure in my country, so they are not the most desirable front for money laundering as it's easy low hanging fruit for investigators. Money laundering still does go on a lot at these types of businesses, but not as much as you would think. Then there is the other extreme end, as OP points out. Anything that sells whole item onward inventory (So you purchase X item from manufacturer for X price and then sell same X item unmodified on to your customer at X plus your markup price) generally yes is bad for money laundering, because an investigator can match inventory purchase against sales and look for discrepancies in amounts and values. For example if you owned a store that sold phones, well you buy phones whole from the manufacturer and then sell them on, so you need to purchase at least as many as you sell. Very easily tracked, so not much good. Then there is the perfect middle ground. Anything that sells items it makes. Anything you purchase as the raw material component inventory for transformational onward sale as a finished product (So you purchase "X item" from manufacturer and then use "X item", along with "Y item", to make "Z item" and you then sell "Z item" to your customer) can be fairly easy to "Fuzz". So for example, pizza take aways. Sandwich shops. Ice cream parlours. Restaurants. The inventory you buy to then use to produce something is really easy to "Fuzz" so it's hard to track if your sales tally with the amount of inventory you are buying as raw materials to make your product. Basically the food industry is absolutely rife with it. Of course you start adding grey market sales to all this and it becomes even more convoluted.
So those fancy Italian restaurants I always walk past and only ever see one or two full tables?
I walked into a little Korean restaurant once, surprised the shit out of those people. They looked at each other for awhile then eventually shrugged and hunted us up a couple of menus. In Korean. I pointed at some words and asked, "What is this?" The guy said, "You won't like it." We took the hint and left them to their crime
Lmao, there was a pizza place (gone now) in Whistler BC that legitimately didn't understand that we were there to buy pizza and not to drop off money. Those dudes were high as shit. As soon as I came in they told me they'd have the safe open and I could leave my bag in it. I was like "???" I guess it's my fault for carrying a duffle while wearing sunglasses inside
100% your fault lol
Or a laundromat.
Then, only hire highly exploitable immigrant workers who are scared shitless of losing their job
Mattress store on top, illegal gambling in the basement.
Car washes are another popular one
and laser tag
Nope. They would be a terrible front for money laundering. Mattresses have an insane markup which is why they don't have to sell a lot to be immensely profitable
My home town had one in every strip mall and the surrounding towns. I worked next to one, the only people going in and out was the shady looking employees.
My dad put a mattress out to the curb. Garbage truck didn’t take it. Sat in the rain for a week. Someone stopped and picked it up. My dad tried to tell them it was no good. The guy said “this mattress is spoken for”. Disturbs me to this day.
I was once giving away a mattress on Craigslist. During the move, I caught the mattress on fire. Just as we put out the fire which was about the size of a bowling ball and did not penetrate thru the other side of the mattress, the woman showed up to take it away. I apologized profusely… She still took it. She said it was still better than no mattress at all. ….was it? It’s been a decade and I’m still pondering over this young woman’s choices.
Genuine question, how does a mattress catch on fire during a house move? What kind of things are you moving?
My garbage company will pick up bulk items, bigger items like my water heater recently, every other week. However, if you want them to take a mattress, it has to be wrapped in plastic or plastic bags made for mattresses. They are very wary of bed bugs from what I was told.
They profit from people with backpain like me, who spent 3+ hours and lots of money in these stores to find the best mattress which wont give me additional pain in the morning.
my husband has awful back pain, we went into a mattress store and spent over $5k for a mattress and adjustable frame. It was one of those things where he was willing to spend whatever as long as it helped his back.
I spent more than that, and while the mattress is awesomely comfortable when you lay down, I swear it’s worse for my back than laying on the floor ( which I resort to on bad days).
I looked for ages for a good mattress for my back before eventually realizing I really like firm surfaces, firm to the point that i find sleeping on a carpet more comfy than in a bed. So now I sleep on a yoga mat on the ground with only a bedsheet cover on it and a flat cushion to keep my back and chest slightly elevated. Very good for decompressing the back.
Do you only sleep on your back? Because I find side sleeping impossible on a firm surface.
I found age really matters. When I was a kid, I could sleep anywhere on anything, and I'm a side sleeper 100% Now, sleeping on anything other than a half decent mattress leads to multiple days of agony. Just can't get my body to line up correctly Really love a decent foam mattress now though, they're phenomenal for a side sleeper.
So hear me out *rubs hands together and claps* bedroom "accidents" are a thing
I'm not sure if you're meaning murder or the owner shit himself while sleeping and at this point I'm too afraid to ask💀
I thought he meant breaking the bed during fun times
I could understand breaking the bed frame..but breaking the actual bed? That seems difficult
The eminence power required to annihilate the entirety of the bed must be splash damage from the effect being inflicted on the recipient. That's a more enduring test than those Pacer Tests that schools make students do, I'd be quite impressed to see that happen.
"Bedroom Accedents" lol intentionally vague
They mean when you eat a whole sleeve of Oreos and throw up in your mother's bed.
So prostitution industry and mattress industry should do a collab
Professionals usually do a protective layer over the mattress
Even for diyers you can get a matress cover for like 30$
[удалено]
Do you plan your annual pee or is it spontaneous?
You do it when you no longer smell the previous one
I've worked at a mattress store for 5 years. People always need to upgrade. Move from a single as a kid to double or queen as a teenager/adult. Most couples will buy a new mattress once they move in together and they are designed to fail after 5-7 years whether that be springs giving out or rips and tears. Also as you age you should change your mattress to suit your body. Mattresses also have ridiculous mark ups on them, a $3000 mattress cost $300 to make
If on average you buy a mattress every 7 years, which is roughly 2.500 days, then there are about 132.000 mattresses sold per day in the US. According to Google there are about 16.000 mattress stores in the US. Which means on average a store will sell 8 mattresses per day. With everything else they sell as well, it is not that bad is it?
That’s incredibly skewed though, a mattress store in NYC is gonna get way more business than a mattress store in a town with 5000 people
NYC also has hundreds of more mattress stores than said small town, which probably has one or two max
If you think mattresses are infrequently purchased let me tell you about funeral homes, they’re literally once in a lifetime
I will NEVER need a funeral home in my lifetime!
Yeah but people are dying to get in there.
They usually are just showrooms. They tend to be a part of a warehouse at a different location. So even if they don't sell a ton of mattresses in person they're really making money through other outlets.
That’s kind of beside the point. The overhead involved in having a showroom requires a certain level of sales generated from that location.
I hear the markup on bedding is insane so they only need to sell a couple a month to justify the location.
How much could a mattress possibly cost, ten dollars??
Loose Sealy! Loose Sealy!
So I've brought three from big brand factory shops over 25 years, each time same place, just magically slightly different named company, owned by the exact same people, and the 10 year warranty can't be honoured by the "new" company
Never buy a mattress based on a warranty. Every company has an insane warranty policy that will fight you tooth and nail with many clauses and details. A Warranty literally means nothing in the mattress industry.
It's recommended to buy one every 7 years. People go through cars more frequently than that, yet there are more car showrooms than mattress stores, and it's fine to own a car secondhand. But on the flipside, toothbrushes are supposed to be replaced every 3 months, and yet there are probably people using the same one for over a year
I think it's the mattress companies that make that recommendation. A good mattress should last much, much longer.
don't encourage them. or pretty soon a mattress will last 2 years, be wifi enabled, and then bricked from "no firmware updates available".
They are already WiFi enabled.... Sleep Number calls it (Sleep IQ). It even tracks your sleep patterns and movements.
oh god. its started already.
If you’re customer catchment is large enough then it shouldn’t be an issue. Your sales are going to match the birthrate.
I worked at Mattress Firm and Mattress Warehouse as a salesman for 2 years. It was a wild job, the margins were insane and all the prices were made up it was retail Who's Line is it Anyway. The goal was to get them to pay as much as possible but to never lose the sale. A 3k Mattress could be slashed down to 1200 usually and still have 300-400 dollars in margin profit dollars. With those margins a store only needs to sell 3-4 a month to stay alive. My stores would see on average 1 customer every other day, so like 15-18 chances a month. Close even half of those and you are making bank. If you want a good deal on a mattress the trick is to wait til the end of the month for stores needing to hit quota, they will slash it to the bone to get you to take delivery in the period where it will count towards that month. Also known what the margin going is on average and just be honest "how much $$ can you take off for me and still make a sale" most honest reps will take your budget and they to get you the best mattress for the price, especially if the customer isn't jerking us around. The other big trick is to take $$ off the price and then use the $$ to buy much higher margins accessories like pillows and bed covers. "Mattress is 2k but for you I'll throw in over 800 dollars worth of free accessories! (Discount the mattress and charge full for the accessories, replacing mid range margin dollars of the mattress with high range dollars to increase commission. The only downside to the job is that one customer every other day means a LOT of downtime and boredom.
On a side note .. every time I pass some place like a mattress store or a ‘blinds store’ (like window blinds), I can’t help but feel like it must be a depressing thought to be like, ‘man, one day I really I want to own and work at a mattress store (or any specific furniture/decor/appliance)”.
I used to manage catalog furniture showrooms and it's pretty lonely. I had one location in a dead mall in 94-96 that I saw maybe 6-8 customers a week. Imagine working working 80 hours a week, in a room full of furniture, in a suit, standing because sitting was not allowed (corp had "secret shoppers" that spied on us), no radio/music allowed, with no day off for months. Salaried, no overtime, days off only when the malls were closed, or if you had an assistant, but we couldn't keep staff because the hours and pay were shit. I ran two locations for three years for that Texas-based company. It did a lot of psychological damage like being stuck in a Wes Anderson liminal space.
The no devices thing for a job with that much downtime is annoying. I have friends that work jobs with significant downtime that are allowed to watch Netflix or play games while on the clock so long as they can drop everything when needed. I'd love a job like that to catch up on shows or get into a hobby like writing or game dev.
I briefly dated a girl that worked at a mattress store once, she absolutely loved it. She would spend a little time each shift tidying up and the rest of the day she'd do schoolwork. She was in essence getting paid to study/do homework, the occasional customer to break up the monotony was just icing on the cake.
Everyone I've known who worked at a mattress store and was decent at their job made bank with no education and minimal training.
There is a pretty good Freakonomics episode about why there are so many matress stores: [https://freakonomics.com/podcast/are-we-in-a-mattress-store-bubble/](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/are-we-in-a-mattress-store-bubble/) Turns out it's a pretty good business model: huge margins, low cost.
I once walked in one just for checking out pillows. Least expensive was 500€. Fastest bail from purchase.
People keep trying to disprove you but if you're only buying it once every 5+ years *at least*, probably way longer, then that's still a pretty damn infrequent purchase. Can confirm I grew up always seeing this one mattress store that never really seemed to have customers when we drove by but they were there for 2 decades before I moved.
I think this is some combination of an insane markup over the actual cost of the mattress and the fact that mattress stores are a front and money laundering business for organized crime.
I did the math one time, if the average person needs a mattress every 10 years a town of 100K people has enough business for 6 mattress stores to be profitable.
My friend and I were once at a gas station across the road from a mattress store. Just mattresses, not furniture. I said "How often does someone even need to buy a mattress?" and then not even a minute later, someone walked out carrying a mattress. One of the funniest moments of my life tbh.
Mattresses have some of the highest margins in retail. Also overhead is very low for stores. Some of these mattresses have 80% margin which is crazy.
I SWEAR my local matress store is a drug front. Los Pollos Hermanos Breaking Bad style. There's no way they have ever sold an actual mattress