81–90 of 173 posts
FWIW, Warby Parker was not the first web-based retailer to undercut traditional eyewear sales, nor are they the cheapest. They do seem to have the best PR, though.
http://www.originalmattress.com/eliminating-the-middle-man
Unfortunately they don't have a presence on the West Coast.
There are all sorts of outlets for reasonably priced, what you see is what you get mattresses: Sam's Club. Costco. Ikea. You can get a decent name brand mainstream mattress for ~$500. The problem with mattresses is that it's a product where you need a salesman. There's a bunch of different products that look similar, but have significant differences. You want to match the customer with what they want (or tell them wh…
"There are all sorts of outlets for reasonably priced, what you see is what you get mattresses: Sam's Club. Costco. Ikea. You can get a decent name brand mainstream mattress for ~$500." I hear you, but who says that $500 is a reasonable price for a mattress? I'm sorry, but looking at the raw materials involved (don't even get me started on the frickin foam ones that don't even have springs: I'm looking at you Tempurp…
http://www.overstock.com/Bedding-Bath/Memory-Foam-Mattresses...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does price matching work? One of the major problems with mattress stores is that everybody sells different mattresses -- they're 99% identical, but tiny changes are made to justify a different name and prevent comparison shopping and price matching.
Yes that is part of the whole scam which I learned a lot about during my last mattress purchase. SleepCountry has a catalog cross referencing the types of mattresses from other companies that are very similar if not exact matches to what they carry. I ended up price matching a Bay One Day Sale mattress that was $799 (normally $2000, of course that is inflated too) and they gave me a similar mattress in the showroom t…
How do you know that? If what the article says is true, it cost them $500 to manufacture that mattress, or less. With a sale of $800, they're still making a good profit.
These days it doesn't seem like outbound distribution is too big of a deal (many mattresses are shippable in rolled or compressed-box form), it's the reverse logistics that are tricky. Once the genie is out of the bottle, good luck getting it back in. I'd love to be able to try out a mattress, like Zappos shoes or Bonobos pants, and return them for free if I'm not 100% happy. Maybe someone needs to invent an easily-compressable mattress so I can purchase online with total confidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got my last mattress from Silver State Industries (nevada prison manufacturing) for under $500 (Cal King). It is more comfortable than the Serta that I had originally spent around $1,500 on.
I think I'd find the guilt of knowing my mattress was made by slave labor to be a heavier price than the $1k in savings.
Having worked for one of the major mattress firms, there are truths in the article, but also some serious mistakes. The pricing structure, where they hide the models by using different names across retailers, is 100% true. They absolutely do that to prevent price shopping. The markup math is off. Mattresses are a high margin business, but most of those mattresses you see in specialty retailers are not built until som…
What happens in a specialty high-end mattress store has very little to do with the bulk of the market: people buying mattresses at Macy's or one of the numerous regional mattress chains. I don't have any experience in the super-high-end, but have worked with the low-middle-high end that you get going to a "mattress store". Those models are definitely not built-to-order, they're sitting in a warehouse waiting to be de…
Having worked for one of the major mattress firms, there are truths in the article, but also some serious mistakes. The pricing structure, where they hide the models by using different names across retailers, is 100% true. They absolutely do that to prevent price shopping. The markup math is off. Mattresses are a high margin business, but most of those mattresses you see in specialty retailers are not built until som…
A used mattress is worth about the same as a used pair of underwear. This has nothing to do with custom options.
I believe that entrepreneurs could do well, generally, by looking for opportunities in industries that are dominated by private-equity players. If an industry is overweight PE, you can bet that the market analysis looks fantastically attractive (competition isn't too fierce, suppliers have little power, buyers have little power, not many substitutes, and little perceived threat from new entrants). If a clever entrepr…
Could someone explain for the… ahh… more financially naïve among us why private equity is the important signifier here? It seems like what rscale is talking about are markets which are opaque due to companies that have enough clout to force that inefficiency (e.g., by restricting information or making product comparisons impossible.) Why or how is that coordinated with private equity?