I just wanted to make sure this isn’t a “too good to be true” situation. I’ve been checking out some of the recommended mattresses, including Ghostbed. I noticed that the Ghostbed Flex, for example, is $1817 on Ghostbed’s website but only $1018 on Target and Home Depot’s website. I expected manufacturers websites to be more expensive but that difference was larger than anticipated. Is it really the same model or is there some kind of b-stock situation (or other disadvantage) with Target I need to know about.
In order to potentially cultivate more sales, some mattress manufacturers will sell directly to the consumer (DTC) on their own website, as well as placing their items with other online retailers and/or brick and mortar stores. In order to not cannibalize sales from these other retailers, the manufacturer will quite often offer their products at a substantially higher price on their own website, in effect driving sales to these retailers and not angering the retailers in the process. Could you imagine carrying a particular mattress brand at your store and then having that manufacturer compete directly against you by offering the same (or a lower!) price top the public? It’s happened before, and it’s a sure way of ensuring that retailers will pull your product off of their floors. The selling price on various online retailers is all the same (besides the Ghostbed site) for this item, so it seems that Ghostbed has some sort of minimum advertised price policy, where a retailer is asked to not advertise a product below a certain price point. Many brands maintain such policies to “protect brand integrity”. While the specifications are not completely detailed on the websites, the GB Flex should be the same model at the stores you mentioned as shown on the GB website.
Hi Koop87:
It seems that you get the center of attention. To add to Jeff’s valuable MI insights (Thanks Mattress To Go! :lol: )
There can also be another factor at play …it may not be so much a “too good to be true” situation" as much as it is a temporary situation. Many retailers use the device of a “loss-leader”. A loss-leader is strategically offering a product at a very low-profit margin to bring in customers or traffic to their business. Unlike a standard discount these types of “deep discounts” are usually only for a short time, particularly during high sales seasons.
I’d make sure to consider all aspects of your personal value equation and what is important to you (including return or exchange policies which are important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase but are secondary to mattress suitability and durability (A mattress that isn’t a good match in terms of PPP(Posture and Alignment, Pressure Relief, and Personal Preferences) and you can’t sleep well on it would have little value to you)
E.g. Amazon and Home Depot have only a 30-day return period and though Target has a 90-day it seems Target may not accept returns unless the product is unopened.
If this is the case, this policy would not give you the chance to sleep-test the mattress. The bottom line is that a mattress needs to be a good match for the sleeper. and Target’s above type of 90-day return policy is not the same as the “comfort trial period” that GB offers on their site for 101 days, in order to ensure that the mattress matches the consumers’ PPP.
When purchasing products directly from GBs website consumers have additional features and services that their retail partners (such as Target, Home Depot, etc.) may not offer. Nothing really comes for free so different advantages are typically reflected in the price. Other variations in pricing may include shipping, returns, mattress disposal, and much more.
I checked with Mark Werner (founder and CEO of GB) today and he assured me that they sell only first quality products whether from their site or their retail partners and that there are no “b-stock situations” for GB products on the market.
He went on to say that GB is more than comfortable with consumers buying from their partners. Just remember that depending on where you are buying from, you may or may not be able to avail yourself of different advantages such as extended warranties, special promotions, bundled discounts, 0% financing, or most importantly the ability to return the mattress based on a “comfort trial period” if things don’t go as well as you were hoping for.
For a deeper dive into the nuances of mattress pricing I’d say that there are many moving parts when it comes to the many factors involved in the final price of a mattress (see post #14 here ).
When you are comparing pricing for the same mattress sold by different retailers then, just like any two businesses that offer the same products, you’d need to take into account numerous variables: different business and infrastructure costs, different business models and margins, different business volumes which can affect the cost of raw materials, the cost of different options they provide before or after purchase (such as return or exchange options), different pricing policies, different shipping costs, different product or service “bonuses” that are included in a purchase, and any of the other normal differences between any two businesses that all lead to differences in how each business prices its products.
I hope this answers your question about the price difference between vendors.
Phoenix