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The war to sell you a mattress

fastcompany.com

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Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#21

Post by hendzen »

Animats wrote: post #17

The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)

There is a brand on Amazon (Zinus) that sells reasonable quality foam mattresses with low markups. I bought their Queen [0] for $289, and have been happy with it. I'm assuming that Amazon will also eventually introduce an Amazon Basics version and suck up all the profit...

[0] - https://www.amazon.com/Zinus-Memory-Green-Mattress-Queen/dp/...

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#22

Post by orcdork »

Animats wrote: post #17

The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)

Yeah, and the whole web app industry is a scam, actual bandwidth cost is like a penny. And servers are even cheaper in Russia.

(Personally, I run my website on a shared php host for about $1)

--

Snarkiness aside, it's surprising to see comments like this here.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#23

Post by paul7986 »

Animats wrote: post #17

The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)

Have you ever had something manufactured and or purchased a product in bulk on Alibaba?

I'm just starting this now and would love to hear personal experiences and tips.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#25

Post by TrickyRick »

paul7986 wrote: post #23
Animats wrote: post #17

The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)

Have you ever had something manufactured and or purchased a product in bulk on Alibaba? I'm just starting this now and would love to hear personal experiences and tips.

I think OP means Aliexpress where you can order single items.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#26

Post by paul7986 »

TrickyRick wrote: post #25
paul7986 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever had something manufactured and or purchased a product in bulk on Alibaba? I'm just starting this now and would love to hear personal experiences and tips.

I think OP means Aliexpress where you can order single items.

Oh i bet all these online mattress companies are getting their mattresses from Alibaba. Buy each for $80 and sell them for $500 to $800.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#27

Post by liaukovv »

dzink wrote: post #9

What does YC think of companies that make affiliate revenue? Is it a positive or a negative in the VC world?

I don't think it's possible to implement an affiliate program in a completely ethical way. Even if you try to make your reviews fair and honest you will still have a subconscious bias to give every product as high score as possible, because high scores generate affiliate purchases.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#28

Post by amelius »

orcdork wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #17

The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)

Yeah, and the whole web app industry is a scam, actual bandwidth cost is like a penny. And servers are even cheaper in Russia. (Personally, I run my website on a shared php host for about $1) -- Snarkiness aside, it's surprising to see comments like this here.

Your comparison is unfair, given that new web apps are being created/updated (but also abandoned) constantly, and this requires work. Mattresses have been invented long ago, and can be mostly produced by robots. Mattresses should be a commodity, and be priced accordingly.
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