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Casper Sleep S-1

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Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#11

Post by blackearl »

tempsy wrote: post #7
gooseus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing market dominance from years of targeted advertising on podcasts as well as buying/bullying mattress reviewer websites to make sure they stay as the highest rated. HN from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15321807 "Casper went to war with popular mattress review site, then financed its takeover"

so even people who are cash strapped are willing to overpay for a commodity item if they perceive it to be the best in a certain price range...? i guess purchasing behavior is very different for things you buy very infrequently like a mattress? looking at Costco and a highly rated foam comparable to Casper is $500...

It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. You might buy 1 per decade, people forget what the experience or price was like. I spent a lot of time researching then gave up and went to a "mattress outlet" laid on a few, then got one for around $400. I sleep fine, probably better than I ever have.

There's also so much info on springs, foam, latex, rubber, on and on. It's overwhelming. Casper has good marketing and make it easy, and since it's so hard to compare, they just need to be close to other prices. They don't need to go full walmart

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#12

Post by jaypeg25 »

rolltiide wrote: post #5
Ohn0 wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of this

Why? In a less costly regulatory environment it would happen way more frequently and it would not be elevated as news https://www.statista.com/statistics/270290/number-of-ipos-in... Edit since I am rate limited: yes it is the best comparison. Let the public access more securities investments, the tools to manage risk are numerous.

I'm all for having more IPO's (my job is actually advocating for policies that make it easier/cheaper for companies to go public) - but maybe this isn't the best comparison to make: "While this [# of IPOs in 2019] was an increase from the past few years, it was half the number of twenty years ago, while the Dot Com Bubble was forming."

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#13

Post by sharkmerry »

samcampbell wrote: post #8

Disaggregated Revenue Data (Nine months ended September 30) Direct to Consumer: 2018- $239M; 2019- $259M [13% YoY growth] Wholesale: 2018- $31M; 2019- $54M [75% YoY growth] "20.3% year-over-year net revenue growth for the nine months ended September 30, 2019" "We have also expanded our gross margin from 42.8% in 2016 to 44.1% in 2018 and to 50.7% for the three months ended September 30, 2019"

Their Net Loss is still on pace to be about (90m) (most likely slightly more due to sales in Q4 being higher than others). 2018 was 93m Net loss

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#14

Post by criddell »

blackearl wrote: post #9
rolltiide wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can someone help me understand how Casper gets away with selling a $1095 mattress + tax to a majority millennial crowd, who are supposedly cash strapped, and doing so successfully? Because the mattress sellers in the bad part of town still charge 3x more.

I got a great mattress from an outlet, queen size for about $400. I was blown away thinking that Casper was going to be cheaper. They just have good marketing I think

A memory foam mattress for $400? That's a very good deal.

The only Casper product I have is a dog bed and it's great.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#15

Post by opportune »

blackearl wrote: post #9
rolltiide wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can someone help me understand how Casper gets away with selling a $1095 mattress + tax to a majority millennial crowd, who are supposedly cash strapped, and doing so successfully? Because the mattress sellers in the bad part of town still charge 3x more.

I got a great mattress from an outlet, queen size for about $400. I was blown away thinking that Casper was going to be cheaper. They just have good marketing I think

I got my favorite mattress ever from Amazon and it cost like $350 for a (firm) queen foam mattress, box spring, and frame.

Casper (or someone writing about them) once wrote a blog post about how they got into the mattress business because they saw unnecessarily huge margins and direct to consumer opportunity. Now they are opening physical stores and not even charging much differently from regular mattresses. I’m just going to keep buying cheap Chinese mattresses that don’t spend hundreds of dollars per purchase on advertising

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#16

Post by whoisjuan »

samcampbell wrote: post #8

Disaggregated Revenue Data (Nine months ended September 30) Direct to Consumer: 2018- $239M; 2019- $259M [13% YoY growth] Wholesale: 2018- $31M; 2019- $54M [75% YoY growth] "20.3% year-over-year net revenue growth for the nine months ended September 30, 2019" "We have also expanded our gross margin from 42.8% in 2016 to 44.1% in 2018 and to 50.7% for the three months ended September 30, 2019"

It seems that they already saturated their Direct to Consumer channel and all their growth is now dependent on their wholesale efforts. It seems risky to me, especially with a slow-cycle business like mattresses. Also what happens if retailers create their own premium brands and/or secure exclusivity deals with other manufacturers?

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#17

Post by chris_engel »

tempsy wrote: post #2

I haven't been in the market for a mattress for awhile now but went on Casper's website and was shocked to see the price for a Queen is now $1095. I didn't remember it being that high, and checked Wayback and sure enough it was $850 in 2015, and $950 in 2017. Given how many copycats are out there, many selling for much less, can someone help me understand how Casper gets away with selling a $1095 mattress + tax to a…

I guess its because many people think that they need to sleep well in this hectic times and cannot allow themselves tu cut cost on a mattress. Expensive = good quality. Turns out this is nonsense - we have a foundation in germany that does independend product tests for all varieties of things and came to the conclusion that the best mattress they ever tested was some 200€ mattress.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#18

Post by tempsy »

blackearl wrote: post #11
tempsy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so even people who are cash strapped are willing to overpay for a commodity item if they perceive it to be the best in a certain price range...? i guess purchasing behavior is very different for things you buy very infrequently like a mattress? looking at Costco and a highly rated foam comparable to Casper is $500...

It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. You might buy 1 per decade, people forget what the experience or price was like. I spent a lot of time researching then gave up and went to a "mattress outlet" laid on a few, then got one for around $400. I sleep fine, probably better than I ever have. There's also so much info on springs, foam, latex, rubber, on and on. It's overwhelming. Casper has good m…

$1100+tax is more than double what you'd pay at Ikea, Amazon, Costco, etc.

I thought the promise of all these direct-to-consumer products was to pass savings onto the consumer because they are vertically integrated and cut out scammy middle men.

Seems like all that's happened is they just keep fat margins for themselves.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#19

Post by untog »

tempsy wrote: post #7
gooseus wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing market dominance from years of targeted advertising on podcasts as well as buying/bullying mattress reviewer websites to make sure they stay as the highest rated. HN from 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15321807 "Casper went to war with popular mattress review site, then financed its takeover"

so even people who are cash strapped are willing to overpay for a commodity item if they perceive it to be the best in a certain price range...? i guess purchasing behavior is very different for things you buy very infrequently like a mattress? looking at Costco and a highly rated foam comparable to Casper is $500...

I think a lot of it is whether you consider the price (whatever it is) to be reasonable. I am willing to spend $1000 on something I spend literally half my life on top of.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#20

Post by dirtyid »

tempsy wrote: post #2

I haven't been in the market for a mattress for awhile now but went on Casper's website and was shocked to see the price for a Queen is now $1095. I didn't remember it being that high, and checked Wayback and sure enough it was $850 in 2015, and $950 in 2017. Given how many copycats are out there, many selling for much less, can someone help me understand how Casper gets away with selling a $1095 mattress + tax to a…

Brand appeal I suppose. I remember 1/2 the Casper price tag goes to marketing - I just bought a generic Amazon Zinus for 1/2 the price that research suggested came from the same foam factory. Seems like Zinus has gone down in cost in the last few years as one would expect with economy of scale while Casper has gone up one, $250 now from Amazon shipped, 1/4 of Casper. Simultaneously feels like Casper has cut back on marketing. Also Zinus is a 40 year old Korean company that's been doing bedding for for 15 years compared to Casper, a tech company that's been around for 5. It seems like a no brainer decision for anyone doing rudimentary research.
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