Hi Aimless1,
I appreciate your input, but I have to admit I don’t share quite that degree of cynicism nor necessarily agree with this viewpoint.
There are many retailers who don’t offer delivery, set up or removal, and this in no way is a reflection upon the level of their knowledge, quality of product, or service/concern for their clients. It’s a common business model used when a retailer is attempting to keep their overhead as low as possible, and quite often reflecting that in the lower prices that they are able to offer their clients.
Regarding the ability to return a product, as you can see in my reply in post #3 in this thread, I personally would place less of an importance on the ability to return and exchange a product when I was able to try it out in person with the help of knowledgeable and experienced local retailer or manufacturer. It’s also important to note that the inclusion of a mattress exchange plan is an extra fixed expense that a retailer passes along to every consumer, with the “many” effectively subsidizing the “few” who will return a product.
With that being said, one’s own personal value equation is paramount and there’s nothing wrong if delivery, set up, removal, and the ability to exchange are very high on someone’s list of priorities. Some people don’t have the ability to dispose of an old mattress (or donate it), and others know that they have a difficult time finding a mattress and are closer to the “Princess and the Pea” in that spectrum, so the ability to return/exchange would be very important to them. While these items might be high on their list of priorities, I would remind them to make sure that they don’t supplant the guidelines outlined in the mattress shopping tutorial, but are instead in addition to those guidelines.
Businesses survive not only upon their quality of products, but their reputation. There certainly are stories of businesses offering poor service and still surviving, or opening and closing stores every few years to get away from their own poor operating practices, but those situations aren’t the norm and generally an unprofitable way of conducting business. That is one area where reviews can be valuable and offer some insight into how a business conducts itself. But such a broad brush viewpoint wouldn’t be accurate of the majority of businesses out there (at least not if they want to stay in business :cheer: ).
Phoenix