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Casper Sleep S-1

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Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#91

Post by awalton »

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.

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

Judging by their S-1, not so much... They're offering up $100M in shares on $200M of assets and $300M in debt. They spend about as much on marketing as they make from selling the goods, leaving shareholders to pay for all of the administration expenses. If it were a tech company it'd be easy to say this is another debt-fueled startup looking for an exit...

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#92

Post by awalton »

atyppo wrote: post #78
Ohn0 wrote: post #3

I'm so tired of this

IPOs have precipitously declined since the 90s. In 1999, there were 486 IPOs. There are now approximately 190 per year. [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/270290/number-of-ipos-in...

You're going to go with the dot-com bubble era for a comparison here?

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#93

Post by rolltiide »

ivalm wrote: post #67
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.

Go to Costco, Living Spaces, or a myriad of other non-seedy stores and get a mattress for half the price.

and people also dont need to go to the artisanal grocery store for food, doesnt mean there isnt a market

The point is that the only reason Casper is “controversial” here is because IPOs have been elevated to a coveted version of success when it has nothing to do with anything aside from being unnecessarily rare.

Casper is just a vertically integrated mattress seller accessing the public markets now

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#94

Post by b0tch7 »

I did an insane amount of research when buying my mattress a couple years back, there are _so_ many bed-in-a-box companies now. Decided on Helix Sleep because they offer a level of customisation, and their customer support is rated incredibly highly (which I decided very important if you're going to buy a mattress without trying it).

I love my Helix so much so that I convinced my parents to buy one. They didn't love theirs and sure enough, customer service was hassle-free with the return. So my n=2 recommendation: Helix is the way to go

That said those Glow Lights do seem pretty awesome

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#95

Post by joering2 »

commoner wrote: post #74

Casper sued a mattress review site, Sleepopolis, for writing negative reviews of their products. Casper then settled the lawsuit by taking over Sleepopolis. The site now posts only positive reviews of Casper's mattresses. https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg... I would take any reviews of Casper's products with a grain of salt.

Thanks for pointing that one out! I had no idea. I was literally less than a week from purchasing two Casper mattresses - one for my family one for my parents. I bailed. I also told my sister to return hers since she's still in the refund window. She told me it wasn't nearly as comfortable as she thought but they gave her hard time with refund. They asked her to either pay return fees which are north of $300 or find non profit that would accept. I'm taking matters in my hand. Its sad.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#96

Post by hurricanesugar »

commoner wrote: post #74

Casper sued a mattress review site, Sleepopolis, for writing negative reviews of their products. Casper then settled the lawsuit by taking over Sleepopolis. The site now posts only positive reviews of Casper's mattresses. https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg... I would take any reviews of Casper's products with a grain of salt.

Relevant HN discussion and further details about Casper’s relationship with sleepopolis.com: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15321807

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#97

Post by joering2 »

wayoutthere wrote: post #51
throwlaplace wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those are great (fantastic?) margins but i don't understand why they're not higher? there are so many memory foam mattresses on amazon that are exactly the same thing (maybe slightly shallower "soft foam" that run for e.g. ~300 for a queen that are themselves probably making great margins.

I have a Casper and I tend to sweat a lot at night so I was looking for a more premium mattress with better ventilation. When I've spent the night with "friends" who have cheaper foam mattresses, I often wake up drenched in sweat.

it has very little to do with mattress, hot air from your body tends to behave as psychics would dictate and will go through your blanket upwards, or whatever you sleep under. Most reasons for sweating is your AC blowing cold air at you at night when you sleep. When your head is cold the body raises temperature and hence you sweat under blanket.

Last thing to change would be another grand on new mattress.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#98

Post by Cymen »

discardable_dan wrote: post #69
codingslave wrote: post #68

The trick is that there are a bunch of mattress companies on Amazon selling really cheap foam mattresses (~200$) that are basically the same as Casper. But Casper jammed a ton of money into branding and marketing, so probably has great margins on their products. Foam mattresses as a product are getting extremely cheap and the quality is really not bad. I have a cheap one and honestly like sleeping on it more than 120…

Can you recommend any of these cheap Amazon alternatives?

I love this one:

Sleep Innovations Shiloh 12-inch Memory Foam Mattress

I've had others staying in our guest bedroom love it too and go out and buy one. At this point, with a number of moves and growing family, I've bought something like 5-6 of them.

I think Costco sells the same mattress under Novaflex or a similar name but at a slightly higher price point (the Amazon price varies quite a bit on the Sleep Innovations mattresses -- check CamelCamelCamel on it if curious).

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#99

Post by xwdv »

The product I like from Casper isn’t their mattress – It’s their lights. They’re god damn incredible, I sleep peacefully thanks to those. They should just focus on stuff like that.

Re: Casper Sleep S-1

#100

Post by ceejayoz »

awalton wrote: post #88
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…

> It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress. I don't understand this at all. You can Google and have all the prices right at hand, so comparison shopping by number isn't hard. You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like - is the pillow top or foam too soft? Do the coils poke too hard? Too firm? Too heavy for you to move when you need…

> so comparison shopping by number isn't hard

Yes, it is. The major mattress stores each have their own custom SKUs to defeat comparison.

> You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like

To some extent, but there's a wear-in period on a new mattress. It takes my body a few days to a few weeks to get used to any new mattress; trying to figure out how that's going to go from a few minutes in a store isn't super effective.

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