Mattress Nightmare, finally getting out of a pillowtop

[phoenix]

Hi eric0668,

I was worried about budget and these nice places not having things I can afford after driving an hour. I suppose I can call as I read and tell them my budget and ask if they can put me in something within that constraint??

I would always call any retailer or manufacturer I wanted to visit before I went to visit them as a “standard” practice yes (it’s part of step 3).

I know you don’t tell where to buy, but most of those places aren’t going to take advantage of me? Do you know if any of them negotiate like local dealers (Not that that’s a good thing)

If you follow all the guidelines then it would be very difficult for any retailer or manufacturer to take advantage of you and you may find you know more than they do. Just make sure you never make an impulse purchase or a purchase where you feel any sense of urgency to “buy now” or based on a “fake sale” that they have convinced you is only good if you make a decision now. You can read a little more about negotiations in post #6 here but many of the better retailers or manufacturers don’t have “fake sales” and will usually have their best prices or close to their best prices every day of the year. You can always ask of course if they ever have any sales or if they would accept a negotiated offer (which can be a warning sign if they do) but if you do “negotiate” make sure it’s based on the prices of other comparable mattresses that are available to you and not on a “fake” regular price that nobody ever pays anyway and are only there for their customers to “feel good” about what a great negotiator they are and what a “deal” they received.

Lastly, as I said in the post, I know it might be the lesser of evils for someone to give a recommendation if they didn’t like local store shopping, but I thought I comprehended one part to say, yes, it is subjective, but try to pull some objective things out of it when comparing mattresses, like spine shape etc…correct?

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this …

I know it might be the lesser of evils for someone to give a recommendation if they didn’t like local store shopping

… but in general either your own testing or using the help and guidance of an online manufacturer or retailer are the best ways to make the best possible choice in terms of PPP (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here). If a recommendation comes from an online retailer or manufacturer that has the knowledge and experience to know which of their specific mattresses are most often a good “match” for specific types of people based on “averages” and you can’t test the mattress in person then a recommendation would make sense but for a local purchase your own testing will be more reliable than any recommendation based on “theory”.

I thought I comprehended one part to say, yes, it is subjective, but try to pull some objective things out of it when comparing mattresses, like spine shape etc…correct? With that, of the ones I mentioned I assume you would cross of iComfort, from what I read.

Some parts of a mattress purchase are more objective (such as the quality of the materials), some are partly objective and partly subjective (such as pressure relief and alignment), and some are purely subjective (such as evaluating the “feel” of a mattress). All of these together and others as well are part of what I call each person’s personal value equation which are all the parts of a mattress purchase that are most important to you.

Whether or not you cross off the iComfort Insight off your list would depend on how it compared to other very basic memory foam mattresses that were similar (the Insight uses 2.75" of 4 lb gel memory foam over 6" of 1.5 lb polyfoam and there would likely be other lower budget mattresses that have the same or better materials in a lower price range).

The most important parts are to make sure you test any mattress you are considering for PPP, to make sure you know the specifics of all the layers in the mattress, and to never make any decisions under pressure or with any sense of urgency. If you want some feedback about any specific mattress you can always post the details on the forum and I’d be happy to help you “translate” the specs and tell you if there are any obvious “weak links” in the mattress.

Phoenix