Sunday, August 28, 2011

Buying a Mattress On-Line


Last week I wrote about my frustration with trying to figure out what way would be best to buy a mattress. After weighing the options of going to an actual store and buying one online I chose the path that would not require me to drag my little monsters to a store.

Now, I know that it seems crazy to purchase a mattress without trying it but this mattress is for my two year old daughter who would most likely not be giving me any meaningful feedback on whether she prefers a pillow top or regular mattress. I basically chose a mattress that had good reviews, that was of good quality and was in our budget (between $500 and $700 dollars).

I went to every mattress site possible to see all of the options and boy, was I overwhelmed. Once I whittled everything down to a few different mattresses based on my parameters (price within our budget, brand, quality, size) I showed my husband the three or four mattresses that were left. He chose the one he thought would be best out of the ones I liked and then I sat and wondered how I would compare prices between all of the websites as every store has different names for the same mattress (talk about price comparison headache time).

I took down the mattress's specifications such as the padding used, coil count, coil gauge, etc. and then went on every online mattress store's site and also the sites of the local furniture stores. To find the mattress I was looking for I looked for the brand I was buying and then looked in the price range it was in. Then I looked up the specifications and compared them to what I had written down (if you can't find this information, many sites have live chat where you can ask a customer service agent or you can call). Doing this I was able to see who had the best deal. I kept a list of the stores, their price, their delivery charges (and whether they leave the mattress at your front door or bring it in and set it up), whether they charged tax or not and if there were any online coupon codes. Also, please keep in mind that the cheapest store may not be the best- make sure you Google them to see what customers have to say about their service.

We ended up getting a Sealy Posterpedic pillow top mattress from US Mattress for $500 with free shipping and no tax. We opted to pay through Bill Me Later for six months at 0% financing because even though we had the money in savings to pay for the mattress I would rather pay over a couple of months so we can keep the most money in saving possible. We also bought a Sealy crib mattress at the same time because the prices were the same as we would have paid at a store plus there was no tax (and I now don't have to go to a store- yeah for being lazy).

I know that stores try to push the warranty on you when you buy a mattress but you know what? We bought the very expensive extra warranty on my son's mattress which included a mattress cover and I regret it. Especially now, since I found a very nice (and nicely reviewed) mattress cover on Amazon for $50- way cheaper than buying a warranty and half the cost of buying a mattress cover from one of the online mattress stores. If you really think about it, if you buy a high quality mattress cover nothing should be able to make it to your mattress to wreck it in the first place (I'm talking about you bed wetting accidents) and most mattresses already come with a manufacturer's warranty.

All in all, buying a mattress online was a bit of a headache but going to the store would have been far worse. I didn't have to deal with annoying kids running around, a pushy sales person standing over me and getting so tired of looking that I didn't care how much I ended up paying. I was able to do things my way and take my time to make sure I was getting a bang for my buck.

My daughter's mattress is being delivered this week and I can't wait to see how excited she'll be to move into her big girl bed. Now I just need to find her a comforter and make her a bed skirt (which will match the crib skirt, curtains and pillow covers I am also going to be making).

How did anyone do anything before there was the Internet?

1 comment:

  1. To find the mattress I was looking for I looked for the brand I was buying and then looked in the price range it was in.

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