What happens to a mail-order mattress after you return it
I&#x27;d thought I&#x27;d get around the madness of mattress shopping by using just the technique mentioned in the article here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22377160" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22377160</a><p>At least, until I found something I liked. I purchased a Purple 3, thinking that if I loved it, I&#x27;d just stick with it. I <i>did</i> love it, but I couldn&#x27;t justify spending $2k on a twin(!). I returned it, and purchased from another company for ~$700. I didn&#x27;t like it as much as the Purple, but when I went to begin the return, I was told that there <i>was</i> no return process, and that I could &quot;move the mattress to a different room, or donate it.&quot; Two days later, I received a refund for the full purchase amount. That ended my journey; no awesome mattress at any price beats &quot;decent and free.&quot;<p>As much as I appreciate getting a new mattress for zilch, the experience made me extremely wary. Was my mattress so cheaply-made that the manufacturer could afford to give them away? What was up? So I did some research. It turns out that the mattress industry is a racket. The markups are ludicrous; almost every mattress on the market costs, at most, a few hundred dollars to make. And then it&#x27;s also impossible to comparison shop because &quot;models&quot; differ based on retailer by one or two small features; that means no price-matching, if you can even tell what you&#x27;re buying.<p>These are the kinds of things that make people suspicious of the way the economy is set up. It should be easy to find out what you&#x27;re purchasing, and then to pay a fair price for it. Instead you have entire manufacturing-retail chains built on obfuscation and able to eat untold amounts in lost product.