Your site is great, and am definitely considering ordering directly from mattress.net. However, I have some reservations about the mattress cases you offer. I know I want cotton with wool padding as the case, and would probably pay a bit of a premium for organic (FWIW).
However, I’m trying to understand if the organic botanical label is worth the $1500 difference between the mattress.net offering and Nest Bedding (which is a relatively new local chain in SF, that seems to have remarkably positive Yelp ratings), specifically the Q3 queen Mattresses by Nest Bedding – Nest Bedding® Mattresses – two big positives for me with Nest is that they offer free shipping and a 100% money back guarantee, something that no other local boutique organic store offers (European Sleepworks, Wooden Duck or Earthsake). Some other data points - we are also considering Vivateque (the maker of Earthsake’s name brand mattresses) and Sleeptek.ca (Wooden Duck’s OEM). Any thought about either of these manufacturers would be greatly appreciated. But in both cases the prices are insane ($3500+).
for a (Dunlop 6/Talalay 2).
How does one know if the manufacturer claims organic (and has the appropriate labeling in the store) but then substitutes some sub-par cheaper material in the versions they ship? Like-wise, how can one tell whether the firm-ness option that one tested in the store is the same as the one manufactured?
I’m not sure if you were addressing this to me or to Arizona Premium Mattresses but The Mattress Underground doesn’t sell any products and the manufacturers or retailers that are members of the site don’t necessarily monitor the forum so if you have questions that you wish to ask to any of the members then it would be better to contact them directly rather than through the forum. Having said that … they do have mattress covers (see here) that use organic cotton and natural wool but the wool isn’t certified organic.
There is more about organic certifications in post #2 here and in post #2 here. Whether an organic certification is “worth it” to you will really depend on your own personal preferences and lifestyle choices. Organic wool (or organic latex) isn’t necessarily a higher quality or “better” or “safer” material than non organic wool (or latex) and an organic certification can certainly add to the cost of a material relative to the same material that doesn’t have a certification but some consumers feel better about buying organic for their own personal reasons and there are some additional benefits to buying organic other than the quality or the safety of the material that may be important to some people as well (see post #3 here)
Both Mattresses.net and Nest Bedding are members of this site which means that I think highly of both of them and that I believe they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, and transparency.
There is more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here that can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses. There are many people who are willing to pay a premium for a local purchase that they can test in person compared to an online purchase that they can’t but as a very general guideline if the premium for a similar mattress that is available locally is about 25% or so (depending on the person and how strongly they feel about the risks of an online purchase vs local purchase) then I would consider them to be in a similar “value range” but of course this will always depend on specific mattress to mattress comparisons and your own “risk tolerance” along with all the other parts of each person’s personal value equation that are most important to them (including the cost and the options you have available after a purchase if for some reason your mattress doesn’t turn out to be a suitable a “match” for you as you hoped for).
There is also more information in post #2 here about the different ways to choose a mattress (either locally or online) that is the best “match” for you in terms of PPP that can help you assess and minimize the risks of making a choice that doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for that are involved in each of them.
If you are purchasing organic fabrics or layers in a mattress then they should be able to show you the organic certification that back up the claims they are making but you would really be dependent on the integrity and reputation of the manufacturer because if a manufacturer or retailer really wanted to “fool” their customers then they certainly could but no reputable manufacturer would take the chance of harming (or losing) their business or their reputation by knowingly deceiving their customers for the sake of a relatively small or short term increase in their profit.
Floor models will tend to be broken in and are generally a little softer than a new mattress (see post #3 here) and ILD’s with natural latex also aren’t exact to there will be some “mattress to mattress” variation in the exact ILD’s (see post #6 here) but this is normally inside a range that wouldn’t make a significant difference or that most people would notice unless they were unusually sensitive to very small differences in a mattress. I can’t think of any reason where a manufacturer or retailer would benefit by knowingly substituting a different firmness level.
In the end though all of these types of questions come down to a matter of the level of “trust and verify” that a consumer is comfortable with and different people may need different levels of “proof” based on their own criteria and on the integrity and reputation of the merchant they are dealing with because of course it really wouldn’t be possible to “prove” this for someone that at some point wasn’t willing to “believe” what they were being told.
You’ve probably seen this already but just in case you haven’t the better options or possibilities I’m aware of in and around the San Francisco area (subject to the quality/value guidelines I linked) are listed in post #2 here.
For some reason I’d assumed that Mattress Underground and Mattress.net had a connection (possibly due to the Phoenix name connection alone!). My bad!
No problem. I have used the name “Phoenix” since the early days of the internet and bulletin boards long before this site was started and the mythology of the phoenix that rises out of the ashes has always been one of my favorite symbols but because 4 of the members here are based in Phoenix, AZ I have sometimes been mistaken for one or the other of them at various times even though the only connection we have is that they are included in the membership list here and of course that I talk with them on the phone and have come to know them fairly well over the years
