iPhone 8: Here’s Everything You Need to Know This New Lexus Coupe Pisses Off Honda Drivers 10 Great Minimalist Watches Meet the Holy Grail of Retro Gaming Consoles The Most Insane Jeep Wrangler Money Can Buy There is no rest for the weary mattress shopper. Next to used car shopping and getting your fingers stuck in a sausage maker, it’s the kind of brutal and fruitless ordeal we’d rather bypass altogether and go straight to drinking. Whether in a big department store or an awkward mattress shop (where you’re the lone shopper and the salesman is pressuring you into buying a mattress with a sales pitch tantamount to a high school dare), the experience typically sucks. Plus, you do enough research on the not-so-sexy “mattress forums”, and you realize that buying a new mattress is essentially a crapshoot of huge proportions. The big brands wantonly use different mattress names for the same kinds of mattresses — so if you try a “Dream Cloud” at one store, it has a totally different name at another (this is to avoid price matching — “It’s not the same name, it’s not the same mattress!”).
And then there’s the attempt at pretending that two minutes on a department store mattress while you’re fully dressed in street clothes (and fully awake) somehow magically simulates six hours in bed. But hope is out there, and it’s closer than you think. The new breed of mattresses is here and waiting for your tired eyes, back and body. Online shopping, excellent craftsmanship, great prices, free shipping/returns, long and hassle-free trials and stellar customer service are the name of the game for these newcomers — and the big names should be shaking in their individually wrapped coil springs. The jig for the big box is up; these four new mattress companies offer up a new — and superior — shopping and sleeping experience.Let friends in your social network know what you are reading aboutTwitterGoogle+LinkedInPinterestPosted!A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. HOLLYWOOD—Philip Krim greets a visitor in the new Casper showroom here, designed for locals to come up and check out the Casper mattress, which is only sold online.
What's it look like? How does it feel? Is it as comfy as online fans have said?That's all well and good -- but come on, what we really want to do is open up that big box and see what happens.Does a big king b ed really pop up right out of the box, like a jack in the box?Krim slices open the top and grabs the folded mattress, which truly does expand once we pull it out of the box.But how did they get the bed, a combination of memory and latex foam, in there in the first place?"We have these giant machines that compress the bed, and fold it up into a sleeve that puts it into a box," says Krim, a Casper co-founder and CEO.Casper's unique bed-in-a-box proposition has taken off in a big way, selling $20 million worth in 10 months, with no marketing beyond $50-off social coupons and young fans singing its praises online./nW2kQNpMiv— Parker Hills (@parkerhills) January 29, 2015Besides traditional retailers like Ortho Mattress, Sit N' Sleep and department stores, Krim competes with other online mattress sellers, including Tuft & Needle and Signature Sleep, and touts longer guarantee periods.
Casper this week opened the new L.A. showroom, stocked with with millennial favorites like Xbox games and a Sonos sound system, along with a Casper king bed, simply as a way to "interact with customers and get them to know us," says Krim.The new showroom follows the original in New York City, where Casper is headquartered.Krim and four friends started Casper in 2013 as a way to remake the $13 billion mattress industry, and bring it into the tech age. Instead of walking into a showroom, and having to choose between memory foam, pocketed coil, firm or plush, Casper has fewer decisions. There's one kind of mattress — a combination of memory and latex foam, available in twin through California king size, starting at $500. A king sells for $950.Krim says his beds are a fraction of what they would cost at retail. (For instance, a Memory Foam King from mattress reseller Sitnsleep is advertised at $2,600.)"It was simple," says Lee Hoffman, a recent Casper purchaser from New York City. "I went to Bloomingdale's and Macy's first, and there were so many options.
Mattresses are complex and there are too many decisions. With Casper, you order the mattress and don't have to think about it."Check out YouTube, and you'll find dozens of unboxing videos, of young customers filming their experiences on smartphones and spreading the word on their social feeds.First night sleeping on a @Casper mattress. The unboxing experience was fun (yes, it comes suction packed in a box)! https://t.co/3sZPqDVdzr— Kate Kendall (@KateKendall) February 12, 2015It is the customer response to the bed-in-a-box that Krim says produced $20 million in sales, way higher than the $1.8 million in sales he and his partners had originally projected."It speaks to the demand that was out there for a new option," says Krim. "It really connected with people."Krim won't make any projections for 2015. "I've learned that predicting the future is not something I do very well," he says.Some $15 million was raised from a variety of venture firms, led by New Enterprise Associates, which has backed Evernote and Box.NEA general partner Tony Florence says he was inspired to invest because of the size of the bedding market.
Everyone sleeps, and at some point in their life, they buy a new mattress."Nobody I know who buys a bed has a good experience," he says. "It's an obvious category for a new way of doing business."Sales so far are tiny in the overall scheme of things, "but we see tons of innings for growth," says Florence.Just ask Trenni Kusnierek, who got her new Casper mattress last Friday.The Boston resident lives in a four-floor walkup, where getting a mattress up the stairs is quite challenging. "Getting a box up four flights is a lot easier," she says.Like many, she took photos of the bed once it erupted from the box, and is thrilled. "I'm sleeping really well."Casper beds come with a 100 day guarantee, and if you're looking to buy one, check your Twitter feed. Many folks offer links to $50 off coupons.And what if you don't like the bed and want to return it?Krim says the numbers of returns are very, very low. But if you do fall into the under-1%, know this: You won't have to stuff the bed back in the box, because it can't be done.