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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

#71

Post by Ascetik »

cyberferret wrote: post #44
PhilWright wrote: post #3

Amazing to see people stumbling upon millions. Most techies are trying to come up with clever technical solutions to try and build an online business. Whilst elsewhere there are people making millions from reviewing mattresses. Or whatever the next accidental hot market will be.

Review sites in any niche industry can be extremely popular. I am a guitarist, and there are a LOT of blogs and Youtube channel reviewing guitars, amps and pedals. Most are pretty boring, technical reviews which aren't all bad, but get a handful of views. Then there are the channels that thrive on drama and conflict. One particular guitar reviewer is an older chap, with questionable playing skills and knowledge, but…

Yeah basically he is committing extortion and blackmail, pretty sad.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#72

Post by robbiep »

cyberferret wrote: post #45

The whole online mattress industry has a bit of a stink to it. Here in Australia, I have been stalked for months by a particular brand of online mattress, Koala(?), on my Facebook feed, which I ignored, but on the past few weeks, I see the SAME ads on FB with the SAME girl in them etc., sold as a completely new brand. I assume the original company either went bankrupt or received a C&D from somewhere and had to chang…

Koala is still about. But seems like lots of similar ones popping up as well. Apparently all made in same factory? No idea if that is true or not

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#73

Post by ocfnash »

rypskar wrote: post #70
JoshuaEddy wrote: post #69

There is similar situation in the diamond engagement ring market, of all places! NiceIce, Beyond4Cs, Yourdiamondteacher, ProsumerDiamonds -- all affiliate marketing blogs that drive a lot of sales. No lawsuit yet to reveal the inner workings, but undoubtedly there is the same shadiness.

The whole jewelry diamond market is shady and should be boycotted. It is a shame that many still fall for the marketing and think diamonds are rare

Possibly a good time to plug moissanite again: http://diamondssuck.com

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#74

Post by hugecynic »

coldcode wrote: post #54
hendzen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/...

Bought one of those recently, most comfortable mattress I've ever had, and the cost was amazing. No idea why one would pay $3000 for a Temper-Pedic. Even if this mattress only lasted a few years I could buy 10 of them and still come out ahead.

not joking: i bought 2, and use one as the 'box spring'. it's pretty amazing sleeping on 24" of queen memory foam for less than half the cost of a single shitty mattress 10 years ago.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#75

Post by wodenokoto »

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.)

One of the best mattresses I've ever had was a 100usd one I got of Amazon.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#76

Post by hutzlibu »

danpalmer wrote: post #60
hutzlibu wrote: post #36

Now this made me thinking of other online review sites. Are they all like that? I couldn't give an honest review, if I get more money from B than A. So if they state otherwise, I call it fraud And I know that's what people call marketing in general and there might be some truth in it - but that's why you go to these review site to get a neutral view. So normally the customer should pay the reviewer, he is doing work…

This is the reason why I’m traditional journalism there is a very strict divide between the content and business sides of the company. The journalists don’t know about the deals, and the business side don’t get to provide input on the content side. Unfortunately in these smaller, newer forms of content business, those concerns are just ignored.

Erm, the traditional journalism buisness knows ads as well. And there are countless examples of articles being stopped investigating/published, because the main add customer objected and threatened to leave

Or when it so happens, that the boss of the media concern is a golfclub buddy of the senator who is accused of something.

etc. etc.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#77

Post by smileysteve »

r00fus wrote: post #55
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.)

Personally I question visco-elastic foam. Sure, it's cheap and may be ok for a lot of people, but I personally sleep better on an standard spring bed. Foam mattresses don't breathe, they stink (some mattress I've seen are 1+ yr old and continue to stink) and aren't firm enough for me. Do any online retailers sell standard beds? Or am I a dinosaur?

I sleep on firm mattresses and was able to find a "firm" rated cooling gel memory foam mattress. There are levels ~$300 where they have at least one layers of breathable egg crate foam.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#78

Post by IgorPartola »

ocfnash wrote: post #73
rypskar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole jewelry diamond market is shady and should be boycotted. It is a shame that many still fall for the marketing and think diamonds are rare

Possibly a good time to plug moissanite again: http://diamondssuck.com

Odd. The arguments all make sense, but the prices I am seeing are nowhere near the quoted ones. Have the prices on moissanite jewelry been jacked up since this site was created or something?

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#79

Post by throwanem »

hendzen wrote: post #21
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/...

Anything good you know on Amazon for traditional spring mattresses? Foam murders my back.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#80

Post by paulgb »

kodablah wrote: post #14
PhilWright wrote: post #3

Amazing to see people stumbling upon millions. Most techies are trying to come up with clever technical solutions to try and build an online business. Whilst elsewhere there are people making millions from reviewing mattresses. Or whatever the next accidental hot market will be.

I don't find it that amazing having worked at large companies and watched middle to upper management do the same. I try not to play the envy game lest I just self loathe. Luck has always existed. Also, tales like these help keep me humble and I just assume there is a cognitive dissonance and their talents are valuable even if I can't see how.

> I just assume there is a cognitive dissonance and their talents are valuable even if I can't see how.

I think that's the right attitude. Even if you look down upon SEO, there's no denying that the guy learned a skill that took time and effort, plus took some risks that it wouldn't work out.

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