Skip to Search Form Skip to Page Content Check Out The Gummy Bear Bed & Recent Press! “The delivery service was spot on-delivered just when they said they would and set everything up without a single issue.” “Like all bargain hunting consumers we went to the usual brand name stores such as Sleepys/ Macys/ Raymour Flanigan and others too.” “I was looking at a mattress at Sleepy's, and with a box spring and frame it was roughly $1300.” Yelp users haven’t asked any questions yet about Craig's Beds.Firm, plush, or soft feel? �Firm,� I said to the 1-800-Mattress guide as I lay on a Simmons Beautyrest. �Thought so,� he said. �New Yorkers like firm. Soft only sells in the suburbs.� That was the simplest thing I had to consider in my journey through modern bed-land. A lot has changed since the days when a bed was just some springs buttressing iridescent quilted polyester. Mattresses of the moment are made of foam, latex, and sometimes coils in a mind-numbing array of combinations.
The original foam is Tempur-pedic, the solid-memory foam developed by nasa and made famous by its infomercial; now there are legions. Tempur-pedic is one of the firmest beds you can buy and a best seller in New York. (Note to shoppers: This time of year, as white sales abound, Macy’s lists a California King Rhapsody mattress set at $3,799.) Converts like that unshakable feeling�one person can get up without the other inhabitant feeling the weight shift (it’s called �motion separation� in the mattress business). Memory foam is also hypoallergenic, since dust mites can’t live in it. But most of the foam beds I tested felt like warm quicksand, and the way they slowly rose up after I rolled off was slightly creepy. My favorite of the lot was from the Italian company Magniflex, whose �geoethic� line of beds have layers of plant-based memory foam ($1,399 to $5,399 for a queen). Magniflex cuts channels into their foam so air circulates. As I reclined my way through the Soho showroom (59 Crosby St., nr.
646-330-5483), I felt supported but not swallowed. And the delivery is smart; the mattress arrives rolled up a like a rug and vacuum-packed, which makes it a lot easier to lug up to a sixth-floor walk-up. Then there’s latex, which can be natural (made from rubber) or synthetic. It has bounce, so it feels closer to a traditional coil mattress, and manufacturers often layer various densities to �build� a bed�firm on the bottom, soft on top, and so forth. The rule of thumb here is the more natural latex involved, the higher the price. A mid-priced queen like the Stearns and Foster Julep, which has a puffy �Euro� pillow top, costs $1,799 (Sleepy’s, 157 E. 57th St., nr. 212-421-3090). I found Ikea’s $899 queen-size natural latex quite satisfactory and�in this time of gargantuan, 21-inch-deep pillow-top giants�appealingly slim. (Ikea Brooklyn, 1 Beard St., nr. Otsego St., Red Hook; Hybrid beds made up the majority of the mattresses I tried. By and large, they felt exactly the same�an inch more latex here, a firm pillow top on a soft mattress or vice versa.
Some even had a core of inner springs, each nestled into their own fabric pockets. I sunk happily into the Empress Exceptionale by Simmons at 1-800-Mattress ($3,499 for a queen, 369 W. 34th St., nr. 212-239-0127), made with springs covered in latex plus memory foam and a pillow top. But it is so enormous, I can’t imagine getting it into my New York apartment. Which is one of the problems with beds today. Some salespeople I spoke with reported a supersize backlash. 1-800-Mattress just introduced a house brand of shallower, cheaper mattresses with old-fashioned coils ($599 for a queen Classic Gem). They’re also two-sided, which many mattresses aren’t anymore, meaning they can be flipped periodically, thus lengthening their life span. I admired the thriftiness, but after trying all the pillow tops, the throwbacks felt too springy. If I were going to replace my ten-year-old embodiment of old technology, I’d buy the David from OrganicPedic by OMI at ABC Carpet & Home’s organic emporium ($3,395 for a queen, 888 Broadway, at 19th St.; 212-473-3000).
Three layers of pure organic latex, customizable to your preference: firm, soft, medium. And the cotton cover is removable, so if the top latex layer seems saggy after a couple of years, you can just replace it for $850 instead of buying an entirely new mattress. Consumers are quickly becoming more comfortable buying mattresses without ever trying them out. In fact, the latest Consumer Reports' mattress survey shows that many people bought their mattresses at retailers with few brick-and-mortar outlets or that sell mattresses online, and they like what they're finding. Of the four mattress stores that scored highly in our mattress store Ratings for overall satisfaction, Original Mattress Factory has stores in just nine states (though it ships to most). Costco stores display mattresses standing up, which makes them difficult to try, and sells more than half of its mattresses online. and QVC, don't sell mattresses at walk-in stores at all. The 20,000 subscribers surveyed were the least satisfied with Big Lots, a discount retailer with more than 1,400 stores in 47 states.
Subscribers who shopped there were particularly displeased with that chain’s mattress selection and the cleanliness of floor models; they were also among the most likely to report shopping-related problems. Just slightly better was Sleepy’s, which was lowest rated in 2013, the last time we asked our subscribers about mattress stores. Sleepy’s is now owned by Mattress Firm, which placed in the middle of the pack in our Ratings. But much like Sleepy’s, it also gets dinged for its prices. (Check out the best and worst mattress brands.) Before you shop, check our exclusive brand and retailer Ratings, use our mattress buying guide, and review our Ratings of almost 60 innerspring, foam, and adjustable-air mattresses. Major Mattress Retailers Don't Impress In our survey, traditional sellers, mattress chains, and department stores fared the worst. Our subscribers shopped mostly at Sleep Number mattress stores, and that retailer scored well except for price. Macy’s did about the same but with one notable difference: Eight percent of respondents who shopped at Macy’s, as opposed to just three percent for Sleep Number, said they'd buy from a different retailer given the chance to do it over again.
But Macy's wasn't the only retailer that left some respondents wishing for a do-over. Shoppers were even more dissatisfied with their experiences at Big Lots, Rooms to Go, Sleepy's, Mattress Warehouse, and JC Penney. In our survey, we also asked subscribers to tell us about the stores they rejected. In other words, they shopped there for a mattress but changed their mind and bought elsewhere. Here, too, is worrying news for traditional retailers. Of those subscribers who shopped around for a mattress, 11 percent rejected Macy’s, 10 percent rejected Sears and Mattress Firm, 9 percent said no to Sleep Number, and 8 percent rejected Sleepy’s. Price is what seals the deal for many shoppers, and Amazon, Costco, IKEA, and Walmart got excellent marks on that score. None of the retailers got top marks for selection, although eight did very well and only one, Original Mattress Factory, aced the Service score. Where do you shop? Tell us whether you buy online or at a store.