Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Casper Sleep S-1

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 162 posts

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#21

Post by cwyers »

criddell wrote: post #14
blackearl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I got Costco's house brand memory foam mattress for that when it was on sale. Best mattress I've ever owned. (And I probably wouldn't have it if I hadn't tested out a memory foam mattress at a Casper store, in a bit of irony.)

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#22

Post by dawnerd »

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…

Costco just had them for 480 bucks. I picked one up, so far it's been worth it.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#23

Post by evandev »

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...

From what I have heard, Costco buys Casper mattresses in bulk and are able to charge basically whatever they want.

It does make sense that Casper itself needs higher profit margins than Costco due to the differences in business.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#24

Post by tempsy »

untog wrote: post #19
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...

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.

foam mattresses at Costco, Amazon, Ikea, etc. are under $500, so this is more than double for something that is not clearly 2x better than comparable products

if this was objectively proven to be the absolute best foam mattress on the market, I would generally agree that paying top dollar for the best is fine for something you spend a lot of time using, but there's nothing out there that suggests this is any better than anything else on the market. It appears as if it's mostly just good marketing.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#25

Post by blackearl »

criddell wrote: post #14
blackearl wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not foam, it's some hybrid spring thing. There's so much crap out there it's hard to know what's real and what's BS

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#26

Post by dguo »

opportune wrote: post #10

Interesting that they want to explore medical devices, “sleep services”, and sleep supplements. Guess they are marketing themselves as the Amazon of sleep? Because right now all I know about them is that they sell overpriced mattresses

You are correct: https://fortune.com/2016/04/19/casper-amazon-of-sleep/

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#27

Post by Paperweight »

tempsy wrote: post #18
blackearl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Started-up with principles. Got big. Reverted to the beancounter corporate mean. Now charging what the market will bear. Opportunity now open for new startup with principles. Rinse and repeat.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#28

Post by blackearl »

whoisjuan wrote: post #16
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?

No better time to dump the business on the market and run

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#29

Post by paxys »

whoisjuan wrote: post #16
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?

Risky, yes, but the US mattress market has an annual revenue of ~$15 billion, so wholesale is definitely the area where they can expand a lot.
Post reply on HN