Why there are so many online mattress-in-a-box companies
The journalist spoke to all these founders and to marketing people, but didn't ask a fairly obvious question: What makes the mattress market so much weirder than for other products? Let's compare mattresses to big-screen TVs, which are also $1000+, infrequently purchased, bulky items:<p>- The article says, "If consumers recognize a brand, it creates a situation where mattress stores are slashing prices to compete with each other." But how is that different for Samsung or LG TVs?<p>- "The number of mattress manufacturers is close to 500," meaning in the US I presume. Why are there only 19 TV manufacturers that market in the U.S., and probably not many more in the whole world?<p>- Why do mattress manufacturers obfuscate the model numbers so that "every one of the stores gets a slightly different mattress" making it impossible for consumers to compare? TVs aren't like that. LG's current lineup seems to be 11 different models for 65-inch TVs and 3 models for 60-inch TVs. It's perfectly easy to compare LG's prices online vs Best Buy vs other stores.<p>So why are the mattress and TV markets so different? To take a stab at answering my own question, I think it's because mattresses are still mostly made locally in the US since they can't be shipped great distances (like from China), so they don't benefit from huge economies of scale and cheap labor. And many of those 500 manufacturers probably serve a niche geographical area, so they actually have less competition than TVs manufacturers. Hence they can get away with 300% markup whereas TVs manufacturers operate on tiny margins. Therefore TVs need to compete on features and price, but mattress manufacturers have traditionally used high-pressure tactics and obfuscation to make sales. Anyone have a better explanation?