> Mattresses were a notoriously opaque and user-hostile market. A decade ago I was working at a startup aimed at helping people make better purchasing decisions, and that was one of the top categories people mentioned struggling with.

I've found that one of the most time-efficient heuristics for getting a quality product for these product categories is simply "buy whatever Costco is selling".

And Costco can leverage that by selling mattresses for $50 more than you'd spend somewhere else. Ikea does the same thing. I'm a stupid vaper and trying to piece together a kit based off reviews by the kinds of people who vape is incredibly tedious. There's value in not having to guess.

> And Costco can leverage that by selling mattresses for $50 more than you'd spend somewhere else

Costco explicitly commits to never making more than 12% on anything they sell. It’s a major part of their brand and part of the reason people trust them.

Where is this commitment? I am not able to find it and I am reasonably certain that Costco has a much larger margin than 12% on many of their products.

If anything, that sounds like an average, which doesn't tell you anything as they could be screwing you on mattresses while losing money on hot dogs and rotisserie chickens to even it out to a 12% gross margin.

It’s mentioned quite often in their financial filings but I don’t have an example handy and I don’t feel like digging through a 10K right now. However, here is an Esquire article that mentions it:

“Costco has stated that the highest margin they will take on a non-Costco brand is 13 percent and they strive to keep it closer to 10 percent.”

https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a35749/costco-the-...

I'm with the other comments: where do they say they cap at 12%? Costco brings a lot of value to the consumer, IMO, but I feel like that's deliberately shooting themselves in the foot.

And why the arbitrary 12%? Why not 15 or 21?

Costco is often cheaper than other retailers and on sale can be much cheaper. I grabbed a Casper king for 680$, way under the Casper list price even with coupons.

I didn’t like it and I returned it without issue.

Ikea is NOT selling mattresses at $50 above what other places charge. Compare materials, coil count, thickness, etc. -- plus return policy. Ikea mattresses are a huge bargain compared to similar mattresses from any major brand such as Sealy, Serta, etc. Can't speak to the online mattress sellers.

Ever go to a mattress store? Never seen a $3000 mattress before but that was the cheapest model they had. It has to be a front right? This place is a minor chain in town.

Throw on some cheaper looking clothes and try again.

> Things are at least a little better now, in that at least the DTC companies have a clear set of options that get sold at reasonably clear price points.

Although I agree with your statement, no one tried to solve the actual problem with purchasing a mattress: finding a mattress that fits you well. The process changed from trying many mattresses in a uselessly-short[1] in-store test (with almost no information about what you're buying), to buying a "One size fits most" item for a product where that doesn't actually exist[1] – and without even trying it.

[1]: From "Choosing the Best Mattress: An Experiment in Testing Whether Individuals Choose a Bed That Leads to Improved Sleep," https://www.rti.org/sites/default/files/resources/rr-0016-11... : "The mattress that individuals chose as optimal before the randomized, controlled phase of the study did not predict either the actigraphically determined best mattress or the best mattress as determined by reported sleep quality." Lots more in the paper.

The problem with mattresses is that the DTCs like Casper got started just as the Chinese manufacturers were going "More Direct to Consumer". I can get a Casper-equivalent mattress from a no-name brand like Zinus for hundreds less than a Capser mattress, and the difference just goes to Casper's customer acquisition (i.e. ads + a generous return policy).

Casper basically became the modern version of the opaque mattress store.

https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/bed-mattress-review-home.ht...

I always loved the "sex" part of these ratings. No matter what type of mattress you get, the best sex you'll get is overall a B-.

I'm curious how waterbeds would fare by those criteria, given their reputation in that regard.

I learned a lot about frequencies in a fixed sized medium and standing waves with a waterbed. Also balance and teamwork.

The problem is that your no name Chinese knock off mattress might be flammable.

I won't know or care till it's too late for me to care other than for a gruesome 3 minutes. Carcinogenic on the other hand.

I mean this is the real problem with Amazon right? I think it's the real reason Jeff Bezos says Amazon will go bankrupt.

To me it's the real problem with the American consumer

Umm, Zinus is a South Korean company that was in business well before Casper was, and has a higher market cap. :-)

https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/013890:KS

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that Zinus was lesser than Casper, or didn't come earlier. In fact, I'm fairly certain if we peel back the curtain, most of these American DTC mattress vendors are actually just Zinus under the hood.

I bought a Spa Sensations mattress back in 2010, and that's actually just Walmart's label on a Zinus mattress. (They even call it "Spa Sensations by Zinus" now.) Phenomenal mattress, super cheap, has lasted me forever. I suspect that many of the DTC vendors were doing the same and being a little less overt about it (so they could pocket the markup).

If I had to buy another mattress right now, I'd just buy direct from Zinus, as it looks like they have a reasonable retail presence in the US now.

> Mattresses were a notoriously opaque and user-hostile market

Based on the data, I think we can conclude that opacity and user hostility are insufficient criteria for a DTC play. (Unless consumers are willing to pay a premium for the removal of said opacity and hostility.)

I think it's too early to say. For me the real problem with these companies is VC money seeking VC-sized returns, which often come from getting outsize market power (e.g., the FAANGs).

I think the DTC companies mostly can't build the moats needed to make that kind of money. So I think a reckoning is overdue. But once key players can no longer subsidize each sale, we'll find out for sure where the store-vs-DTC balance is.

My personal guess is that plenty of people will keep buying DTC goods, and that many categories will be more than competitive with brick-and-mortar competitors. So I expect DTC mattresses will be a good business, even if none of the current big players survive the culling.

Opacity and user hostility tends to exist to substantially inflate prices or thwart discounting. Lower prices are sufficient for a DTC entrant to grab share.

Maybe just a little before Casper was founded, I bought a memory foam mattress off of Amazon that was well-reviewed and could be delivered with Prime. It's been a great mattress. That's still an option today -- and at a few hundred dollars cheaper than the main DTCs, I'm not quite sure where they can really provide a ton of additional value.

You have some assurance that you’re buying a consistent product.

Buying a foam mattress on Amazon sounds like inviting some sort of toxic mess of outgassing junk into your bedroom. No thanks.

Yeah I got an "egg crate" mattress topper off of Amazon and had to let that thing sit in my garage for a week before it didn't reek. I can only wonder how much it off gassed after that, but my bedroom has decent ventilation so hopefully I didn't breathe in too many carcinogens.

> Based on the data, I think we can conclude that opacity and user hostility are insufficient criteria for a DTC play.

DTC at a 40% discount from "I can buy it walking into a show room staffed by a dozen salesmen in a Manhattan shopping district" is not enough of a discount. Make a discount 85% of that every damn day and we can talk.

> Mattresses were a notoriously opaque and user-hostile market. A decade ago I was working at a startup aimed at helping people make better purchasing decisions

Who is this startup, and can they help me identify what I love about my current mattress so that when it's done, I can buy one much like it?

Alas, we failed. Our theory was that what people liked best was recommendations from their first- and second-degree network (followed by a few other kinds of information). This worked really well if you had a relatively dense social network in the app. E.g., you could ask your exact question and get back replies from your friends and their friends. Inevitably a few friends and FoaFs would have useful approaches for something as common as mattresses. So toward the end of our seed money we were working hard on network infill and it was looking good. Then Facebook drastically changed the sharing rules, tanking our growth numbers just as we were looking to raise money. RIP and c'est la guerre.

The site I like best these days for purchase decision support is Wirecutter. Here's their mattress guide, which seems sensible to me: https://thewirecutter.com/guides/buying-a-mattress/

Property of the NY times

Yeah and honestly it’s one of the most refreshing things an old-guard newspaper has done. Using journalism chops to actually provide consumers with valuable information that affects their daily lives.

I would love if they stated doing more in-depth pieces about different niche markets.