My post in a similar threada while ago, reposting comments I’d made in two earlier mattress threads.
Summary: DO NOT PAY LIST PRICE!!! Mattress pricing is a total scam.
harmonicamoon: what about sex?
Excellent question commasense.
The consensus is… sex wins on the mattress!
That is why it is great to have both.
We bought a new bed/ mattress about 5 years back. We went out without a clear idea on what we wanted (when I say we my wife and I) and fortunately visited a few specialist mattress stores. I don’t think they were the ones MMM referred to.
Anyway, we didn’t plan to spend a lot of money but after testing- as in sitting on etc (and etc did not include the obvious!)- we knew the one we wanted. It was obvious.
Trouble is, it was the most expensive. So we shelled out $7,000 and have never regretted it. Not one letter.
And the cat has never slept anywhere else.
Okay now we’re really getting somewhere.
harmonicamoon, when you say hammock are you talking Gilligan’s Island style, full on hammock?One question; how’d you get the two palm trees in your room?
But seriously, I’m trying to imagine how a hammock doesn’t give you a backache. If course I’ve haven’t experienced one in many years, and certainly not the type you have.
jtur88 The thought of lying on the floor is making my aching back twitch just thinking about it. However, I remember when my dad used to throw his back out he would lie on the floor to relieve it. So even though it seems counterintuitive, there’s obviously something to it. I don’t have enough room next to my bed but I could sprawl out in the living room. If you guys don’t hear from me for a while, it means I couldn’t get up.
commasense, I wish I had your cajones (figuratively speaking).
If I were you’d I’d specifically look for only mattresses that come with an in-home trial of at least a month with a full refund if you return it within the trial period.
We bought a queen size Casper mattress last summer for my daughter’s room (which will be the guest room when she moves out permanently after college). She likes it a lot. The box was the size of a large dorm fridge, and, at 65 lbs, was relatively easy to handle. The mattress is a combination of memory and latex foams, and seems relatively firm to me.
Casper is a heavy podcast advertiser, and they routinely offer $50-off promo codes, which puts the cost of a queen at $800, shipping included (and no sales tax outside of NY, though standard disclaimer that you are still obligated to pay sales/use tax to your local jurisdiction applies). They include a 100-day free return policy.
If you mean you have a hard time haggling, there are two options: bring someone with you who’s better at it, or grow a pair! 
Seriously, negotiating a price with a salesperson in a mattress store doesn’t take balls, because there’s nothing at stake except the amount of time you’re spending shopping for it. On the other side is the amount of money you’re going to save. But it’s not like asking for a raise at work, where pissing off your boss could have some serious consequences.
In buying a mattress, you’re the one in charge. You don’t have to buy at any particular store: you have lots of other choices and the sales people know that. They have to please you, not the other way around. You lose nothing if you walk away after they refuse an offer you’ve made. But chances are good they won’t let you walk away.
Another point I suspect is a dirty little secret about selling mattresses: by the time you feel you need to replace your old mattress, almost any new one – firm, soft, etc. – will be a significant improvement, and most people can get used to any decent mattress relatively easily. Since you can’t really comparison shop, in the sense of actually sleeping for a night or two on several different mattresses, you make your best guess as to what you will find comfortable, buy it, and then confirmation bias takes over. You get used to it, and it was the best purchase of your life. (Of course, it would have been a better deal if you had only paid half the price, which is what I’m arguing for trying to achieve.)
Here’s an example from my personal experience that supports my claim. The mattress I bought in 2008 was a firm one with a thin pillow top. I happily slept on it for a couple of years. A little while later I reconnected with the woman I would marry in 2011, and started spending nights on her mattress, a very soft one with a very deep pillow top. At first I was worried that, being used to a firmer bed, I wouldn’t be comfortable on hers. But I got used to it pretty easily, and have slept happily on it every night for the last 4.5 years.
The sellers can offer bogus price matching and the trial periods that lalaith has suggested you look for, not because they are truly willing to honor them (as I pointed out in my other posts, the former is effectively impossible), but, in the latter case, because they don’t expect to have to 99.99% of the time. Face it, it would be a real pain in the ass to go back to the store and have them remove a mattress you’ve been using for a month. What will you replace it with? Your old one? You probably discarded it when they delivered the new one. Another one from that store? They might agree to that since they mark up the prices by well over 100% and probably won’t lose money by selling two mattresses for the price of one. But they won’t be happy about it and they won’t make it easy for you, since they’ll have to discard your trial mattress. (I’m pretty sure they aren’t allowed to sell used mattresses.) If they’re willing to do it at all, they’ll be strongly guiding you to a much more expensive model, and you’ll probably be guilted into letting them do it.
The point is, if you buy from a retail store, do not, under any circumstances, pay the list price. Or at the very least, wait for one of their frequent sale periods and buy then, or ask for the sale price they offered at the sale that ended last week. You will probably find they are willing to sell many of their mattresses at half the listed price. If you pay more, you’re paying too much.
Another resource: www.sleeplikethedead.com
I think the starting point is to figure out what kind of mattress you want given the available options and their feature. If you want soft, figure out what that means. If you want firm, figure out what that means. If you don’t know, try to learn what mattresses you’ve slept best on, etc.
Then you go to some place like Mattress Underground to try to figure out brands to target.
Then you figure out particular mattresses in those brands.
Then you either shop in person or pick one online.
I bought a Dream Foam from Amazon using this system. It’s perfect for me, because I wanted a squashy memory foam mattress and didn’t want to spend a million dollars. I went from waking up with aching joints to waking up without aching joints. That’s a win!
The usual argument is to buy this sort of mattress if you’re a back sleeper, or this sort of mattress if you’re a side sleeper. But who is exclusively one or the other? I know that I’m rolling all over all night. (Sometimes onto the floor, but that’s usually not the goal.)
I’m also going to have to buy a new mattress and I really don’t want the hassle. The difference is that I am starting with a store and price and need to work around it. If anybody remembers my last post about the bed inspector-well he came, looked at the mattress and box spring for about 10 seconds, fell in love with my cat who was hiding underneath the bed and immediately said that it was clearly defective and they would replace the set. The only problem it that it is 7 years old so they don’t have an equivalent model. So I have been instructed to go to Macy’s where it was bought and pick out a new set and when they return the prior one they will credit me the original price (~$1800). Currently I’m trying to wait for the best sales to get the best quality for the price. The problem is that I don’t want them to upsell me and have to shell out more money but I don’t want to buy something much cheaper and leave money on the table. They won’t seem to tell me if I can use any extra for things like linens. Anyway, the bottom line is that apparently a box spring should NOT collapse like a pancake even if you are fat like me.
I have no idea of your history with your mattress, but if you have an $1,800 credit at Macy’s you should be able to buy a good quality mattress and boxspring within that budget. (And since you’re replacing an existing bed, you can just continue to use the same bedlinens, headboard and frame you already have.) I just checked their website; they’re having a sale now. (Although when don’t the stores have a sale on mattresses?)
What I am saying is what if I find a set I like for $1600? I would feel like I was throwing away money.
So spend more than $1,800 on the new mattress set. So what if you have to spend out of pocket for it? At least you haven’t thrown away money.
Now doesn’t that sound silly? So don’t worry about it if you find a mattress set for less than the credit you were given.
Where is the 1800 figure coming from? If that’s what they owe you for your defective set, shouldn’t you be able to get that back, even without buying a new set from them?
Here’s a 7-year-old blog post I just found that echoes some of what I was saying.
The Mattress Industry is One Big Scam.
The comments include some posters who claim to be mattress sales people. One revealingly says, “50% off is normal. 60% off is a sale price. Nobody buys a ‘full priced’ mattress!”
To which I say, plenty of people who assume, as with most other consumer products except cars, that they won’t have to negotiate the price apparently do pay list or close to it, to their detriment.
This is the problem: the warrantee is on a 7 year old mattress. From what I can tell, they will credit me $1800 toward a new mattress but I do not think that they will just refund the money. Based on what I am reading here, I think I may try to use this as a bargaining tool. I need to find a mattress I like that is more expensive then bargain them down to what they will let me spend. (They were supposed to just replace the set but apparently it is so old it isn’t made anymore so they are essentially giving me a voucher for a new set. I am still trying to find out if I am limited to the same brand).
Be a hard ass about it. If they try to force you in any direction, remind them that this was their crappy mattress and you won’t be bullied. Sometimes, just being forceful about your discontent will help. Good luck.