Hi 6488,
I’m not sure if it’s because you wrote this after waking up in the middle of the night but you are certainly not thinking clearly and some of your assumptions and basic premises need to be corrected to put some balance into your comments.
There is nothing in your experience … successful or unsuccessful … than indicates that they have been anything but very helpful and provided you with accurate information that can help most people make good choices. Your personal success or the outcome of your choice has nothing to do with their helpfulness or the validity of their help. As in all the choices we all make in life … you and you alone are responsible for the choices you make … the risk you are willing to take … and the outcome of your choices. The help of any person who is working with you to choose a mattress is always limited to helping you know what others in your circumstances would normally do well with based on “averages” and their experience with their customer base. There is no such thing as a “crystal ball” where someone can predict with any certainty what any specific person will experience when they are trying something they have never tried before whether it is an activity, a food, or a mattress, or anything else. Their role is to provide you with information that can help you make better choices with better odds of success … which is exactly what they did.
We are all very different people and as in all things … other people’s experiences may not agree with your own which is why “comfort reviews” are not a reliable way to know how a mattress will feel and perform for you as an individual. Every one of those reviews were written by someone else who may have a very different combination of body type, sleeping style, preferences, or individual perceptions. If 990 people out of a thousand love a certain food … it doesn’t mean that somehow you will love it as well … or that anyone has done you any kind of disservice (or provided lesser service) by telling you that most people seem to like it. Once again you are responsible for your choice in trying something unknown and to put any of the responsibility on the shoulders of the person that is helping you and making suggestions that are based in fact by telling you what other people prefer is not a self responsible position to hold.
I’m not sure what exactly you were hoping for but it’s just not reasonable to expect anyone else to be able to predict how you will feel about anything including a mattress … except by using the experiences of others as a guideline. When you say this was 'all you could get" … you seem to be forgetting it is all that any reasonable or responsible person or business should provide you. To expect more than this from someone who can’t feel what you feel or hasn’t lived in your body is not reasonable. They did exactly what they should have done which is to provide you with the benefit of their knowledge and experience so you can make a more educated choice in the absence of your own personal testing (which you also could have done). To expect more than this is just not reasonable and puts people who are helping you in the position of being responsible for your choices when they aren’t.
In addition to this … it’s also their responsibility to answer your questions to the best of their ability and not to anticipate every one of the hundreds of questions that different people may ask and answer them without you even asking. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure that all your questions are answered including what your options are if your comfort choice turns out to be less than ideal. They fully disclose their policy to anyone who has asks and it is included in several places on this forum as well (see here for example). You are responsible for the questions you ask and to make sure you understand your options before, during, and after your purchase. to imply that they are somehow “not disclosing” something because you didn’t ask it makes no sense. It also wouldn’t be reasonable to think that there is no cost to this service for those who need it when their margins and value are already among the best in the country. Nothing is free even though the cost of an exchange with them is nowhere near what it would cost to replace a layer outside of using their exchange service or even to replace a mattress if you were buying locally.
It’s a good thing that your husband was more aware of the risk of an online purchase than you were and thought about what may happen if your first choice wasn’t your best one. I would be grateful that the cost of this service is so much less than having to start all over again. A layer exchange is part of the “value” of a mattress purchase and as I have mentioned in so many posts on the forum … is part of each person’s personal value equation. Once again it’s just not reasonable in my view to think that this kind of service doesn’t add to the cost of a product … even though it is minimal … and anticipating the possibility of making a wrong choice is part of every mattress purchase whether it is local or online. As the saying goes … you can’t have your cake and eat it too and the “value benefits” of an online purchase also includes the risk of purchasing a mattress that you haven’t tried in person. The fact that you still have options available is a good thing … not a reason for criticism or to “blame” a manufacturer about the extra cost involved.
Again … you are being given facts here. Assuming that you would be entitled to unlimited exchange options or to benefits outside of their normal policy … online or locally … would not allow a the manufacturer to earn the profit from their efforts they are entitled to and without this … they and their family don’t eat and nobody would even have the option of buying any mattress that had great quality and value. If you exchange a layer … the assumption is that the one you are exchanging is not suitable. What you are calling a “gamble” or a “guessing game” is really a calculated risk and this is the nature of all online purchases to lesser or greater degrees depending on the possibilities that are available to you and what the cost of these options are to a manufacturer.
This is also not accurate as a general statement. There are many possibilities that can contribute to the sleeping temperature of a mattress (see post #2 here for all the many variables) and there is no such thing as a single “conventional mattress”. There are tens of thousands of “conventional mattresses” and each of them may have different temperature regulation properties depending on their design and the materials they contain. A more accurate comparison is to compare latex to other types of foam of a similar firmness level and from this context … latex is the coolest and most breathable category of all the foam materials. Of course some of the other temperature variables also means that any foam mattress may sleep warmer or cooler than another one and natural fibers are also cooler than foam materials but in this case then you have the ability to make adjustments to this as well. Once again the specific experience of a particular person on a specific mattress when all the other variables aren’t known are not a good basis for making a general statement that is not based in fact.
Again … just like other peoples experience may be different from your own … your own experience may be different from any other person. To give “advice” based on your own experience that may not apply to others is no different from making a purchase based on the approval of others (through reviews). Each person needs to recognize their own risk tolerance regardless of how anyone else may feel about their choices. Better advice would be to encourage people to realize that no online purchase (or any purchase for that matter) is risk free and to help them realize that they need to factor in their own risk tolerance to any purchase … not to encourage others to do (or not to do) what you have done based on your own personal experience which is unique to you.
While it may be true that you wouldn’t do this again … I think this is also a little reactive IMO. 8 days is not even enough for the normal break in period of a mattress or for you to go through the normal adjustment period of any mattress and in addition to this you still have good options to make adjustments. While it may be true that you regret your purchase … it seems to me that you haven’t even given your own choice a reasonable chance yet and hopefully others that read your post (and my response) will realize that they may need to take more time before rushing to judgement.
As I have already mentioned … when it comes to comfort choices or how you will feel on any mattress … using other people’s experiences is one of the wort ways to make decisions and there is no guidance, advice, or reviews that can replace your own personal experience (either through prior testing, sleeping on the mattress, or a combination of both). All you can do is to lower the odds of a mistake and accept responsibility for your choices rather than flip flopping from one extreme position (I was convinced) to the other (I’m no longer convinced). Your basic premise here … buying on the approval of others … is flawed and I would encourage you to re-examine it’s value. The mattress you purchased is great quality and value regardless of how you feel about it and because of your husbands insistence you still have good options.
When you put responsibility on others for decisions that you are responsible for … all you do in discourage them from helping you in whatever ways are possible in the first place. Why would someone help someone else when they suspect that they will either become the “hero” or the “goat” … and probably both … in the same transaction. Again … YOU are responsible for your choices and gratitude that you had the foresight to have such good options available to you is a much more effective way of dealing with mistakes than trying to seek blame for the choices you have made.
This is also typical of someone who is looking to blame others for their choices and tries to find more and more reasons to be critical. There are many people who love shredded latex pillows for the very reason that they don’t keep their shape and can be re-shaped which is why they are so suitable for some people who sleep in multiple sleeping positions. The quality of a product has nothing to do with how well it works for or is a preference of any particular person and criticizing a product that you were given for free and that works very well for many people just makes no sense except as a way to 'throw mud against the wall" so that other people will feel the way you do and somehow that may make you feel better.
I need to be clear with posts like yours that this is NOT a review site where “customers are always right” just because they are unhappy and that posts that are unbalanced, overly critical, or seek to blame others for their own choices and don’t take full responsibility for their choices will be put under the same spotlight that you are trying to shine on others. Consumers are often their own worst enemies.
Fair criticism is welcome here and has value. These types of posts though that seek to blame manufacturers or retailers that are going above and beyond in the quality and value of the products they make and sell or the service and guidance they provide to educated consumers (that take the time to do their own research and make informed buying decisions) are not helpful.
In another post on the forum you have asked for help … but have you thought about the likelihood that anyone may be willing to help you when your post here indicates that they may become the next “target” of your criticism if their help turns out to be unsuccessful?
Again … this is a site dedicated to helping people who take responsibility for their choices and providing them with facts and insights that can help them make lower risk and better choices … not to provide some false assurance that any specific choice is somehow guaranteed to have a happy ending.
It seems strange to me that you are claiming you are “trying” to give this time and “not bash the product” when you are doing just that and your “review” was written after only 8 days and you haven’t even completed the process of getting to your final option. You have included the product, people, company, and free bonus you received in your criticisms … and are also encouraging people to make choices based on your own limited experience alone (which doesn’t even represent the majority of their customers). Saying you are not doing something doesn’t change the fact that you are actually doing it … and is the reason for this response.
Phoenix