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When was the last time you bought a mattress? Correction, when was the last time one of your parental or grandparental units bought you a mattress? For me, it was the latter of the two and the answer is about 5 almost 6 years ago. Unfortunately, while you may expect me to have a mattress guy, I went about this whole mattress buying experience by my lonesome (except for some brief help from Tuna – thanks guy). Let me tell you, it is now my duty, no – my obligation, to share with you what I’ve learned.
Arguably the single most important piece of furniture in your house, as was so eloquently stated by a mattress professional, a high quality mattress can make or break you, literally. My back has felt like a 92 year old’s back. I have also been told by a few romantic interests that my bed has been deteriorating for some years now, to them I say – thanks for telling me back then, assholes. So knowing that a new mattress was in order and I would be fronting the bill this time around, I decided to pound the pavement hard.
Now, I’m going to tell you some names of places where I shopped, you’re experience may obviously be different but lets just say I think you will come away with the same feelings. I first decided to check out Sleepy’s, in my humble opinion I think Sleezy’s would have been more appropriate. I went in twice to find myself speaking with a salesman who was “only going to be in the store today”. Now, this I found quite strange – both times I was there the person was only going to be there for that day only. Here’s what it is, because of this information these sub-par salespeople think they can lock you into a deal as they will come across like they are ready to cut prices drastically. The fact of the matter is these prices will be the same regardless of if they were there for that day or not. They are also praying on you making a connection and feeling bad buying from someone else at the store and not them, this fails. The prices, I found, were pretty reasonable only after haggling for a good 20-30 minutes. This was in stark difference to the fine people at Macy’s who had one price and that was it. I don’t want to haggle about a mattress and make you desperately try to get my business and ask me questions like “so why aren’t you buying today?” or “can we go discuss with my general manager?”. Sleepy’s, learn how to sell mattresses – you suck.
I’ll keep the other two more brief but I found that the next three places I went clearly indicated price and what you saw was what you got. Because of this, I felt like I was lead directly to what I would want and what was in my price range. At Mattress Warehouse, I dealt with a straight shooter who was refreshing compared to the Sleepy’s guy. However, when I couldn’t make up my mind and asked about discounts, her attitude came out. I left there feeling like I had a good experience but was NOT sold a mattress. Macy’s was great but their prices were too high. If you ask me, they mark their shit up because of the demographic that walks through the door. They did have quite a selection but the price wasn’t right.
This is when I took a final leap, after a few drinks, and went to Mattress Discounters. Not only were the prices better, the salesman was a 26 year mattress selling vet who knew his shit. We compared two mattresses side to side, got the pricing figured out, and he threw in a bit more of a discount so I could cut the difference between the more expensive and the cheaper models to fit my budget (or the one I made up in my head). Now, I hope that my experience wasn’t overshadowed by my other failed attempts or the alcohol coursing through my veins but this man wasn’t in my face, he left me to consider my options, and provided valuable information on the two mattresses I was looking at.
I don’t know if it comes down to where you buy but you should definitely follow a few rules wherever you go:
1) If the salesman is not striking your fancy, leave. You will not be happy buying from some scumbag who you don’t trust, whether it be a mattress or a brand new car.
2) You have a huge range of prices to choose from, walk in knowing the upper limit of that range and don’t get sucked into something higher. Only look at the mattresses that work for your budget.
3) Know what you’d like: do you want firm? plush? pillow top? Do a little bit of research so it can save you some time. It seems to be pillow top mattresses are for the side sleeper. So if you are a side sleeper like me, go pillow-top.
4) This is what I found the most frustrating: its hard to compare prices because different places have different names for the same mattress you saw elsewhere. Macy’s, specifically, had specially designed for Macy’s mattresses. There is no way you can compare these. So before you bring up Google on your smartphone, know this bit of information.
5) Lay on the mattress for an extended period of time. The sales guy at Macy’s yelled at me 2-3 times about getting up to fast. I asked if I should just take a nap, jokingly of course, to which he said to take a very brief one. This is quite important because a few seconds is not gonna do the trick.
6) Finally, I believe there is striking evidence to suggest that a nice mattress/bed/bedroom is going to get you laid more times than not. Make sure your room is of high quality products and the bed isn’t too soft because you don’t want to fall asleep before the love making commences.
Yours in Mattresses,
Doug
