Online, in a box: The modern way to get a new mattress

Foam mattresses give more even support and are easy to ship

Today's expression: Fine-tune
Explore more: Lesson #530
December 19, 2022:

Forget pushy salesmen and rows of mattresses to try in a store: the new way to buy a mattress is online. New direct-to-consumer companies are upending the industry, focusing on quality, value, and the customer experience. Even better: the mattresses are comfortable. Plus, learn the English expression "fine-tune."

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The new way to buy a mattress is in a box

Lesson summary

Hi everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, lesson number 530 on Monday, December 19, 2022. JR is the producer and he has uploaded today’s full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/530.

You might remember lessons 292 and 293, where we talked about why humans sleep and how to get the best sleep. But one thing I didn’t mention there: the importance of a good mattress. And I’ve just purchased my second mattress in a box, and I’m here to tell you—this is a good idea. In today’s lesson, we’ll talk about the new way to buy a mattress, which is online and in a box.

In the second half of today’s lesson, I’ll show you what it means to “fine tune” something. And we have a quote of the week, which will probably anger some of you…but you don’t have to agree with it to laugh!

Here we go.

The new mattress economy: better, cheaper, and friendlier to consumers

The first beds and mattresses were created at least five million years ago, when apes used layers of plant material to create softer spaces to sleep. The ancient Greeks and Romans made mattresses from cloth, stuffed with straw, wool, or feathers.

I wish I had a more interesting story to tell, but that’s about it. For much of human history, people slept on a softer surface, stuffed with plant material or feathers. Beds changed a lot, but mattresses were pretty simple for a long, long time.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, things started to change. The inner-spring mattress was invented in the 1870s and became popular in the 1930s. The metal coils on an inner-spring mattress could provide much more even support. And new manufacturing techniques allowed companies to mass-produce mattresses for standard bed sizes.

But the springs and the coils cause odd pressure points, especially if you sleep in them for a long time. The springs may have been more consistent than lumpy straw or feather beds, but they still were still far from uniform. And if you share a bed, then you know all too well that if one person moves, the other person feels it, too.

Memory foam came next. Memory foam is a type of material that compresses under pressure, and then returns to its former shape. It was developed by NASA in the 1970s; they thought it would be useful for seat cushions, which would absorb a lot of pressure during launches, but bounce back to their old shape easily.

Memory foam proved popular in bedding. People with back pain found that these mattresses were more comfortable. Hospital patients did better on memory foam mattresses too. During a long stay in bed, patients didn’t suffer from pressure points caused by coils. You might remember television commercials from the 1990s, showing a mattress with a glass of red wine on one side. An actor would drop a bowling ball on the other side—and the wine wouldn’t spill.

But memory foam had its own type of discomfort. When you got onto an early foam mattress, you sort of sank into it. It was hard to move around; and moving during sleep is perfectly natural and healthy. They were also hot: memory foam traps body heat.

Over the years , mattress makers have experimented with different materials. Latex, in particular , introduces some of the bounciness that we associate with spring mattresses. By layering memory foam and latex together, mattress makers can fine-tune the product. Most mattresses combine sturdy foam with traditional memory foam and a few layers of latex. They feel supportive and even, like memory foam, but they have a little responsiveness and bounce, too. They might not isolate movement like pure memory foam, but they don’t transfer movement like old mattresses either.

The new design allows mattress makers to rethink how the whole industry works, including the packaging and buying process. The old way to buy a mattress was to go to a mattress store; they had dozens of mattresses on a showroom floor. You would lay down on a mattress for a few minutes, in full view of everyone, and try to decide if it was comfortable. It was disorienting: how could you tell , in a few minutes, if a bed would be comfortable forever? The overhead lights were blinding. And a salesman was looking at you the whole time.

I hope you don’t choose wrong, either. Because getting a mattress delivered to your house is expensive, and good luck returning it. A lot of companies didn’t even accept returns. So I hope you like your $2,000 mattress.

The industry was fond of confusing tricks, too. The big mattress makers would have oodles of model names and numbers for basically the same product. That made comparison shopping impossible. And the big mattress makers—in the US, they were Sealy, Serta, and Simmons—they dominated the department stores and mattress stores. They crowded out innovation.

But today, it’s all different. Direct-to-consumer brands are starting to overtake the old lumbering giants. Here’s how it works today. You visit the web site of a mattress maker. They show you a few models. Unlike the old days, there are only a few options to choose from—sometimes a company offers only one or two models. And they’re a lot more affordable than the old designs.

Then, you order the mattress, and it arrives in a box. It’s heavy, but the box is small. The mattress comes compressed. You open the box in your bedroom and unroll the compressed mattress. You cut off the plastic, and it immediately begins to take its rectangular shape. After a few hours, it’s ready for you to sleep on.

The new mattress makers let you try the mattress in your home for a long time—at the very least a full month, but most give you 90 to 180 days. You can’t re-compress it, but the company will come collect it and donate it if you’re not satisfied. But most people are satisfied—these products are good.

On my second one

All right, so if you want to try this out—I highly recommend it. Six years ago, I was sleeping on an inner spring mattress that I had been using for—at that time—twelve years. It was time for an upgrade. So I took what seemed like a gamble and bought a foam mattress from an online-only company called Leesa. It came in a box, just like I described. It was the most comfortable mattress I had ever had.

I came to Mexico and decided I needed another mattress in a box. Here, there’s a mattress maker called Nooz. Again, came in a box, again, super comfortable. JR, a couple of years ago, got a mattress in a box, too, and he likes his.

So my recommendation is this…if your mattress is not working for you, look at one of these brands. Make sure you get a trial period and free returns, but these foam mattresses are the way to go.

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Expression: Fine-tune