What I know about buying a mattress I’ve learned from the best: Insiders who have retired from the sleep product industry.It is impossible to compare by make and model from one store to another. No wonder mattress retailers are so quick to promise that if you can find the same mattress at a lower price they’ll give it to you for free. They know that will never happen because no other store carries that exact mattress.Each mattress manufacturer makes “levels” of mattresses for the stores that sell their brand: Very cheap, decent cheap, good and best. That’s not what they call them, but you can tell by the pricing within each manufacturer’s line of products.A very cheap mattress is about 10 percent materials (foam, steel, padding) and 90 percent air. A mid-level mattress is about 40 percent materials and so on. The more material, the better the product and the higher the price. A high-quality mattress will be 90 percent materials which means it will be the heaviest of those you try to lift.
Go ahead, lift the corner of a mattress. If it’s light as a feather you can be sure it is a very cheap, low quality mattress.The heavier the person(s) who will be sleeping on the mattress, the heavier you want the mattress to be. You spend 30 percent of your life on your mattress. It makes a lot of sense to spend twice the price of a cheap mattress to have it last four times as long.A pillow top mattress is a normal mattress with a layer of extra padding on top. The pillow top will wear out and flatten down long before the actual mattress begins to show a dent. But it is attached permanently. You’ll pay at least $150 more for a pillow top (double that if it has a pillow top on both sides). Buy a great mattress pad instead. Then throw it away when it mashes down and buy a new one. Using this technique, you will have a mattress that lasts many years longer.Once you’ve narrowed your choices to two or three, get comfortable for at least 15 minutes on each of the beds you are considering.
Do not be shy about taking a short nap on the beds you are considering. Do not make a decision based on the way it looks or by sitting on it for 30 seconds.At the very least you should get free delivery and removal of your old mattress as part of the deal you make in a mattress or department store. And at the most? You could get a price reduction, a mattress cover, sheets and pillows too. Remember the first rule of negotiating: Always ask for more than you’re willing to accept. That way when your opponent comes back and agrees to only some of your counter offer, both of you have the opportunity to come out winners. Question: How old is the mattress you sleep on every night? See detailed Costco customer service rankings, employee comments and much more from our sister site.One of the things everyone really likes about Costco is their very generous return policy: basically, we’ll take back anything from partially eaten food to a year old DVD that you aren’t satisfied with for any reason.
And while they are less generous now on electronics items, just 90 days, that’s still far better (like probably 3x as long) than most retailers. In any case, I’m sure we’ve all taken advantage of their return policy by taking back things we tried and didn’t like or didn’t actually want when we got home, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, I don’t think you should abuse the very nice Costco policies by taking back things in a totally ridiculous and unintended way. I have a story that will probably make you go ‘what? that can’t be right!’ because I know both my husband and I did that and we were standing right there witnessing it. We were taking advantage of the nice return policy at Costco this weekend to return the SDHC cards that I had purchased that were so overpriced, as well as a DVD that we had bought and never opened quite some time ago. I felt bad about returning the DVD because even though it had never been opened and still had the Costco price tag on it, I think it was probably purchased 6 – 10 months ago.
But you know, the Costco guy just took it back like it was no big deal. So, I felt a little less shame. However, the customer standing next to me returning his items should never get over the shame that I hope he felt; though honestly, it didn’t seem like he had an ounce of shame or guilt about him. (I know that is where I got mine) because they don’t usually have them in the stores. So far, so good. But then he said he had purchased it sometime in spring 2008; he didn’t have his receipt. That’s a long, long time ago, I was thinking, but maybe it had a problem or maybe he had never used it. But then the story got even more horrible. He wasn’t returning it because the violin was defective, had a serious issue, the case wasn’t even damaged, or even because his daughter (the violin recipient) had never played it. Nope, he was returning this year and some months old violin because his daughter was no longer interested in playing the violin in school and wouldn’t be needing this one anymore.
Seriously, I know you’re saying ‘What?’ right now because I am and I was there! So, let me just spell this out very plainly: the girl had been playing this violin for over a year, had decided she no longer wanted to play the violin, so this guy wanted Costco to take it back and give him a full refund on it. And he actually stood there acting like this was the most normal return in the world. To Costco’s credit, the service representative that was processing his return only asked him once if there was anything wrong with it and didn’t say anything snarky or even get too pushy about his reason for making the return after all this time. I was thinking, doesn’t he know that you can rent musical instruments. But hey, why rent and have to actually pay, when you can essentially put a deposit on an instrument with Costco and get a full refund back when your kid doesn’t want to play it anymore; full use for over a year for free! So, in the end the guy got his full refund on the violin and one would assume, walked away a happy Costco customer.
But isn’t this a really dreadful abuse of the Costco return policy? I just have to feel that this was never, ever the Costco intent when coming up with their total satisfaction guarantee. I mean, he was satisfied, or should have been since there was nothing wrong with the violin, the only problem was typical childhood apathy to being in band after a year. Should Costco have to pay for that? Personally, I would never take something back in that situation. I’d sell it, wouldn’t you? Or more likely, it would sit around my house gathering dust. But the last thing I would consider, is that Costco should take it back and give me a refund. I still feel all wound up about this and I’m not even Costco and it happened 3 days ago. But I can’t let it go. Luckily, I have this blog where I can rant about this kind of Costco stuff. I just find this so appalling and I think it is because I worry that ridiculousness like this guy and his old violin, will ruin it for all of us.