Mattress Forum

You bring up an interesting point regarding Mattress sales with your "Just lay on them all!" point. Some RSAs do this. It's born from a lack of self assurance and sometimes expertise. Here's the thinking behind it in example form.

Sealy Posturepedic 5-turn Firms are HARD beds. Like bounce a quarter hard. This is due to their reasonably thick 14ga wire being connected by 14ga lace. In short, whenever you press down on one coil, you're pressing down on the 8 coils surrounding it. Couple this with the fact that Sealy zones the middle of their beds with a comparitively firm memory foam and you have a bed you could crack your hip on if you lay down too quickly. Let's pretend you're an RSA. You have a consumer come in and say, "Hard bed! I want the firmest piece you have! Show me your flooring department!" you might take them to this Sealy Posturepedic Firm. The consumer then lies down and bounces right back up saying, "Too soft! I feel like I sink right in!"

As the RSA you might think to yourself that this guy wants to sleep on concrete. While you're attempting to come up with a response the consumer sits down on the Simmons Beautyrest right next to it. Now the Simmons firms are considerably softer. Even though they use a thicker gauge steel (13 on the firms) the fact that each coil is individual gives you a more conforming, less hard-floor type of feeling. You're not feeling the pressure of the 8 surrounding coils whenever you press down on 1 like the Sealy. Imagine this consumer sits down on the Simmons and immediately lies back saying, "Wow...now this is nice and firm." Your professional sense and the laws of physics tell you that the consumer is out of their mind. You do not however argue with him. You can't say, "Well Mr. Consumer you're actually incorrect." People tend not to like their salesguy arguing with them.

Now imagine you have this happen a lot. Let's say 30% of the time the customer disagrees about the feel of the bed with what you know to be true from personal experimentation and simple logic. Imagine you're relatively new. You might eventually throw logic out the window and decline into a "Just try everything!" attitude. From both the consumer and the RSA's benefits this attitude is wrong...but understandable.

A good RSA will ask you a series of questions and narrow your selection down to a few for you to try. Less than five. He might ask these questions outright or he might take the "Eye-doctor" approach of "Which is better? This one or this one?" until he identifies what you're responding to and directs you to those beds. The "Try everything!" approach tends not to work because the beds will all feel the same after about 5. This is useless and counterproductive for both the RSA and the Consumer. The RSA then has a hard time justifying more expensive beds because they all feel the same to the consumer at that point. The consumer runs a high risk of getting the wrong bed because he's been desensitized.

In truth, unless the consumer has extensively tried a specific bed and specifically comes in looking for it, the best thing the RSA can do for the consumer is ignore what the consumer THINKS they want. With the exception of a very small minority that has ventured into gritty details, they have no clue.

A good RSA will smile, listen to what the consumer thinks they want and then identify what they actually need. A very good RSA will do so without the consumer realizing it. Heh.

-Alex

Most major retailers will have cards that have at least some of the information you're looking for. Some small shops don't. I have an old one from my shop lying here it says the following:

- 782 Sealy Posturetech coils

- 7 zone No Toss and Turn inlay with Visco - Latex - Visco pressure relief

- Unicased XT edge support

- Silk and wool infused top

These cards are attached to the headboards of my former shop and are different for each bed. That's about all the detail they go into and are generally more than enough for most consumers. Most of your larger stores and some of your smaller stores should provide at least this much.

So far as the names of the beds being different goes. Well, sometimes the beds are genuinely different by retailer. 5 turn vs 7turn coils, etc. For the most part, however, they're not. The manufacturers have given you a way around this though. Each bed belongs in a series.

For example, a Sealy Posturepedic spring mattress belongs in one of 3 categories:

-Premier

-Reserve

-Signature.

 While not all beds within the same series are identical they do share a lot more in common within a category than without. So if you're shopping at Mattressplace X and you find a Sealy Signature Great River Rapids or whatever and you go to the competitor who tries to convince you that the Sealy Reserve Arbor Morning is the same bed, you can be assured that he's full of it. If he instead shows you a Sealy Signature Giant Floating Dragon (all these names made up) you can at least know they share a lot in common.

Simmons Beautyrest uses classifications:

-Classic

-Worldclass

-Exceptionale

-Black

All Simmons spring mattresses will be called one of these regardless of where you shop. Knowing these categories helps you cross shop.

-Alex

Please see my above post in how to price shop between mattresses. Please also see the same post on the amount of information most retailers and manufacturers do provide.

-Alex

You don't have to take my word for it. Pick up a copy of the October 2009 Consumer Reports. They poll 17,000 of their readers. In it you'll find facts such as this:

- 78% of those who spent more than $4000 on their mattress said they were "highly satisfied" with it.

- 66% of those who spent less than $1000 on their mattress said they were "highly satisfied" with it.

- 78% of people who purchased a mattress said a new bed, any new bed, improved their ability to get a good night's sleep.

- 42% said that their new mattress "greatly improved" their sleep.

There are people out there who have troubles for whatever reason. Usually it's the wrong bed. Sometimes they're a unique case that requires an extensive amount of expertise to narrow in on what (if anything) will solve their problem. For the most part, however, consumers are satisfied with their purchase. Most are even "highly satisfied".

So far as my Simmons Black goes it's all about knowing what was right for me. I'm a side sleeper which means the individual coil systems tend to be better. It 230lbs I'm also not a small man which means a thicker gauge coil is needed. I sleep warm but like to burrow into my mattress. This means a cashmere top with Talalay latex is my best option. The Rosalyn has these features ergo I am highly satisfied.

- Alex