Buying a mattress online is fast becoming the way people choose to shop for the best sleep. I sleep on a mattress from an online store, and it’s been the most comfortable sleep I’ve ever had. Everyone that comes to my house and tries it out agrees and goes home and buys one too. The days of awkwardly perching on a mattress in a store a disappearing, being replaced by cheaper online deals with big in-home sleep trials.
You can probably tell already that I think buying a mattress online is a good idea, but stick around to get all the pros and cons (and learn about my personal experience).
- Pros of buying a mattress online
- Cons of buying a mattress online
- My experience with online mattress brands
The Pros: why you should buy a mattress online
You can buy with confidence
- How your body feels when it’s awake can be totally different from how it is when it’s asleep. Your mood can also impact how you respond to lying on a mattress: are you tired? Have you just done some exercise? This makes it difficult to assess how well you will sleep by lying on a bed in a shop. However, we are so used to trying mattresses in shops that it can be a significant barrier in our minds not to do this. Companies that sell mattresses online are well aware of this, and will usually offer you 100 nights for you to test out the bed. If you decide it doesn’t suit you during that time, you should be able to return it at no cost to yourself. This makes buying a mattress online a lot less risky than you might have first thought, you will have lots of time to decide if it fits your needs. Please make sure you check the trial period on offer for your specific mattress, as this is a general statement I have made here that may not apply to all. I’m happy to help you with this if need be. Send me an email if you need assistance, and I will personally help you.
- You won’t have a pushy salesman breathing down your neck and trying to push you toward a particular mattress. You can take your time to do your research and have a clear head with all the facts.
- It is effortless to buy online. You can shop anytime, anywhere, and usually get free delivery. If you’ve suddenly woken up at 3 am feeling uncomfortable on your current mattress, you can buy another one immediately!
More variety, better prices
- Seen a mattress you like? You can pay around 15% less to buy a mattress online than in-store because you are avoiding a hefty retail markup.
- Online mattress sales have exploded in recent years. A lot of mattress companies have emerged that ONLY sell their products online. If you dismiss all of these options, you could miss the best mattress for you and never even know!
- Another pro about buying a mattress online regarding pricing is that many online-only mattresses offer quality that is on par or superior, but for a fraction of the price. Please read my story below to hear how we got a (so far) great new mattress online for about a quarter of what we would pay in-store for a bed in direct competition with our online choice.
Easier to access information
- It is easier to compare one mattress with another. You can bring statistics up on your screen and lay them side by side. You can hunt for a better price at the touch of a button, you can read tables showing all the mattresses that might suit your requirements.
- You can read reviews of the mattress from people already using it, you don’t need to just rely on the opinions of one salesperson. You can therefore get the broadest, most practical and unbiased overview of whether a mattress is the right choice for you and your sleep requirements.
- You can ask questions to people already using the mattress. On Amazon, some mattresses have hundreds of questions and answers! The manufacturers themselves often jump onto these question boards and participate too so they can be a good way to glean extra pieces of technical information without trawling through the darkest recesses of a company website.
The Cons: will these send you running to the store?
- There is no getting around the fact that you can’t lie on the mattress first: see what it looks like, how it feels to the touch, etc. As I’ve pointed out above, this does not mean you risk getting stuck with a mattress you do not like. But it is a really big thing to overcome in your head.
- Although you don’t have to deal with salespeople, you may feel uncertain about whether the research you’re doing yourself is going to lead you to the right choice. The sheer volume of mattresses available online can lead to analysis paralysis…. where do you even start?! That is exactly why I started this site. To help people just like you.
- Unfortunately, you can’t believe everything you read online. While there may not be a shady salesperson seeing you as their commission check, many mattress review sites are biased towards the companies that give them the biggest affiliate commissions (a commission the website makes if you buy something after clicking a link). Some of the mattress review sites are even owned by mattress companies! That is another big reason why I started this site. To provide you with as much detailed an unbiased information as I can.
My own experiences
Buying in store
The mattress we replaced with an online mattress was an in-store purchase my husband and I made about 5 or 6 years ago. We shopped at the biggest and most well-known furniture store in town as at that time they had what we believed was the best variety.
We went down to that store one morning and laid down on all the mattresses we saw. To me, they all started to feel the same after a while, I couldn’t really tell much difference! I felt quite awkward as there were salespeople hovering around and it distracted me from the task of lying on the mattress. My husband knew he wanted a firm mattress so we focused on those and narrowed it down to two or three that he liked the feel of. We didn’t buy that day, as we were still unsure.
We returned the following week, after participating in a sporting event and were both quite tired. The mattresses felt completely different when we lay down on them in our tired state! We did buy a mattress this day, and it was a different one than we would have chosen had we made a purchase the week before.
Buying online
We have just replaced that old mattress I talk about above with an online purchase. I’ve got a separate article all about that. But it was SO much easier. My husband had gone to the store while I stayed home with the kids (pretty hard to go mattress shopping with small kids!) and come home frustrated with the variety and prices.
He jumped online and looked for a mattress that was similar to the in store ones. He came across one that had better reviews for a similar feel mattress than the leading in store brand, for a quarter of the price! Along with a 100 night trial, free delivery and a 15 year warranty. He bought it on the spot. Done. Easy.
Tell me! What one did you buy??
My husband had thought he needed to get Tempur as that seemed like the leading brand here. The mattress we bought online is from Ecosa. We then got my parents to buy a Napp mattress which they love, and after about a year of Ecosa I made the switch to Winkl (better for side sleepers as it’s softer) and have not looked back. I’ve got a lot more detailed information on that in other posts.
SO…what is my final recommendation to you?
Buy online. I thought long and hard for this article, researching all over the internet. And I came up with more than twice as many pros for buying a mattress on line than I could come up with cons.
However, if the fact that you cannot see and touch the mattress before you buy it is really just too big a concern for you, then going in store may still be the best option for you. Otherwise, I think the many pros outweigh the few cons to buying a mattress online. I really think it’s a great choice for your next mattress. Don’t forget: I will be here to help you with that through my unbiased reviews of the mattresses available on the internet.
Also, remember how we’ve just bought a mattress online? I’ll be writing several update posts on how I’m getting on with my new purchase, so be sure to check the blog regularly for updates.
