Marketing and advertising has reached ridiculous levels in the over populated retail bedding industry. 60% off, Half price, 40% off Ads seem to be around all the time and there are so many franchise bed chains spending a fortune marketing their products that it’s hard to see the forest through the trees. The end result is that the consumers are paying too much for their new mattresses and beds if they don’t shop around.
This however is not as easy as it seems. The facts are that most mattress shops sell the same products as their opposition only they are labeled differently to create the impression that they are unique. This has the effect of hindering consumers from shopping around to get the best price for the same or almost identical article.
There are only so many ways to construct a mattress or base, yet at any one time there are thousands of apparently different models on shop floors. There is nothing wrong with this except that consumers can get bamboozled and end up paying more than they should.
Most mattress manufactures supply the same mattress to different retailers and the only real difference is they just have a different cover and label on, but for all intents and purposes it’s the same bed.
Many retailers advertise “factory direct” when this is just not the case. They buy from manufacturers or importers and put their retail mark up on the same as everyone else.
Unlike a lot of furniture purchases a mattress can be a health issue and where you might buy, say a table that’s made in Asia, and it’s not really a problem, it could be if you buy a mattress made in Asia in that you don’t know what the overseas manufacturer has put in it. You could be breathing in the fumes all night long of something that normally wouldn’t be used by Australian Manufactures like foam made from formaldehyde or CFC’s, or cotton wading laced with glue nobody here knows anything about. Many sellers that say their mattresses are imported from Europe (especially great sounding locations like Italy, and France) can also use Asian materials and are simply sold through that country. To be safe you should know where the materials that make up your mattress originally come from!
The other point that nobody talks about in the industry is that even if you quite like the mattress on the showroom floor you have no real idea how it will feel after a week or so of sleeping on it. Whenever you buy a new bed you’re taking somewhat of a chance and just have to live with the consequenses. No reputable retailer will exchange a mattress you have been sleeping on, and if they do, you have to ask yourself how do you know that the mattress they have just sold you is new. Maybe it’s a return?