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The War to Sell You a Mattress Is an Internet Nightmare

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, Oct 17, 2017.

  1. Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    David Zax, writing for Fast Company:


    In January 2015, Krim wrote Mitcham that while he supported objective reviews, “it pains us to see you (or anyone) recommend a competitor over us.”

    Krim went on: “As you know, we are much bigger than our newly formed competitors. I am confident we can offer you a much bigger commercial relationship because of that. How would you ideally want to structure the affiliate relationship? And also, what can we do to help to grow your business?”

    This entire story is bonkers.

     
  2. Bayside 182

    Wolverine Supporter

    Glad I read that, now all of the ads on my computer are for mattresses........;-p
     
    coleslawed, fenway89, lava890 and 3 others like this.
  3. Fucking Dustin

    Please click "like" Supporter

    Nice cover up @dadbolt
     
  4. Supernova

    Prayers/Triangles Prestigious

    Only halfway done with the article, but I would like to note that I am all too familiar with Derek and his slender body.....

    ......


    .....what I mean is I watched so many of his reviews(and reviews from other sites) around 6 months ago when I was shopping for a mattress I went cross-eyed. I actually just ended up finding a good deal in town on a mattress and went with that. Yes I paid a bit more, but not much. I was inundated with mattresses and couldn't decide. Every mattress sounded good or bad at points.

    (side note, I do not like the mattress I bought in town and wasn't able to swap it out. I would have been able to swap it out when I decided I didn't like it around the 2 month mark but my wife threw away the carbon copy papers we signed that was neeeded for exchange. I'm trying to decide if I want to buy a mattress topper but haven't pulled the trigger yet)
     
  5. dadbolt

    Prestigious Prestigious

  6. irthesteve

    formerly irthesteve Prestigious

    I love this, thanks for posting. I have seen 2 Leesa ads (facebook and yahoo) in the minutes since reading the ad, ha
     
  7. Kiana

    Goddamn, man child Prestigious

    omg I wanted to buy a mattress in the near future but not like this!!
     
    coleslawed and Jason Tate like this.
  8. jjnunn118

    Signal Vs. Noise Prestigious

    That was a wild read, just bought a Casper a couple months back and I'm really liking it. Crazy that Mattress Reviews is such a lucrative business
     
  9. aoftbsten

    Trusted Supporter

    Wouldn't have expected an article about the online mattress industry to be this fascinating.
     
    mercury, Essie and Jason Tate like this.
  10. MrCon

    I was trying to describe myself to someone

    Can't help but think that the wider take away from this is that none of us should ever trust a review of anything ever again. :-/
     
    Patterns in Traffic likes this.
  11. personalmaps

    citrus & cinnamon Prestigious

    this was such a great read first thing in the morning. i would have never guessed online mattresses were such an insane industry. we need to buy one soon and have been considering casper, but idk about that now, haha.
     
    Jason Tate and Blake Solomon like this.
  12. lava890

    Regular Supporter

    I wonder how much of this goes on at Wirecutter. I love Consumer Reports but they don’t review enough products in enough categories I care about.
     
  13. omgrawr

    That loneliness is not a function of solitude.

    I was researching mattresses about a year and a half ago after my wife and I got a house. It's nightmare lol. It's impossible to find reviews that don't seem incredibly shady. All of them have links that clearly benefit the reviewer if you purchase the mattress. The best info I found was on Reddit since that was at least probably normal people giving their opinion.

    I still ended up getting an online mattress though because they are way cheaper than similar mattresses at the store, and going to the store sucks as well. Ironic that one of the main draws of online mattresses is that you can avoid the sleaze involved in the process.

    All that said we do like the mattress we got quite a bit, so there's that.
     
  14. Blake Solomon

    Mr. Emeritus Prestigious

    As surprising as this is, it really isn't?

    In the internet age of commerce, one person jumps in with a new idea, and the market INSTANTLY becomes oversaturated (ride sharing, connected home devices/speakers, even toothbrushes). And what comes with that is a lack of oversight.

    It forces these companies to be cutthroat (well, that's problematic wording because nobody is makign them but you know what i mean). Each day a new wild west industry crops up, I suspect someone could write a story like this every single day about e-commerce.

    My fiancee and I will be looking for a new mattress for the first time as a couple and I was worried before, but now I'm worried that I'm being lied to for everyone else's gain but mine. The return process is attractive, but as a NYC-er, the thought of having to store a bad mattress in a one bedroom apartment and get another one is just as daunting as paying extra at a store.
     
  15. Blake Solomon

    Mr. Emeritus Prestigious

    if you don't mind me asking, what brand did you go with?
     
  16. omgrawr

    That loneliness is not a function of solitude.

    This might've been supposed to quote me haha. Sorry if not! But we went with a relaxed firm king size Loom & Leaf. It's pricier than a lot of the ones that come in a box ($1500 for ours w/ delivery), but it really does feel like a $5000 Tempurpedic bed or whatever.
     
  17. Zip It Chris

    Be kind; everyone is on their own journey.

    Haven't read every word of an article that long in quite some time...when's the Movie coming out?
     
    Blake Solomon likes this.
  18. bodkins

    Trusted

    What. The. Fuck.

    Also my Casper is comfortable as hell.

    Edit: Favorite part of the article:
    “When he gave me two decimal places,” said Samantha, “he had me hooked.”
     
  19. Transient_Hymn

    Somebody Turn the Neon Down Supporter

    Love my Casper. Have a king and it is more comfortable than most high end hotel mattresses.

    Haven’t tried the others but assume they are prob close in quality.

    I know a girl on the product marketing team at Casper and she alluded to some of this last time I saw her...but not to this extent. Absolutely bonkers.
     
  20. My guess would be probably none (disclaimer: I have worked with Jacqui Cheng in the past). They don't need the extra money and do a good job of keeping everything updated and changed. I trust them to usually recommend the top few things in each category, even if I disagree, they usually have what I would recommend up there pretty high.
     
    Transient_Hymn likes this.
  21. Blake Solomon

    Mr. Emeritus Prestigious

    yes, whoops you're correct i did mean you. Thanks for the info, im preemptively gathering all the knowledge i can! especially now since it seems all of the reviewers are crooks.
     
  22. Kiana

    Goddamn, man child Prestigious

    I read this and an article about contestants on supermarket sweep the same day and I felt so blessed to read two fascinating while somehow also mundane articles
     
  23. irthesteve

    formerly irthesteve Prestigious

    I've honestly seen so many mattress ads since I read this yesterday, on social media, side bars, etc, they got me
     
  24. omgrawr

    That loneliness is not a function of solitude.

    Yeah, it's a trip trying to decide which one to get lol. Like I said, we like the Loom & Leaf a lot but from all the stuff I read the Leesa seems to be really well liked for the most part and is about 600 cheaper. Everyone that I actually know who has a Casper seems to like it quite a bit as well. So maybe ultimately they're all just similar mattresses designed to be comfortable to most people and it doesn't really matter what you choose.

    Good luck on the search!
     
  25. Fucking Dustin

    Please click "like" Supporter

    It's really hard to read this descriptive of a post in Vincent Adultman's voice
     
    omgrawr and jjnunn118 like this.