After our tuft and needle died after just a couple of years, Mattress firm was our next stop, and…read moreI learned two important things.- never buy a mattress you haven't tested, and If you go to a mattress store and you like something, you get a huge discount if you go back online and buy it there. I wouldn't have done that except the salesperson we dealt with at Geary St was so pushy and unhelpful that although we liked one of the mattresses, I'm pissy that way. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of a commission. He seemed to not know much, which was surprising, as my experience of mattress stores is even the newest employee can at least give you the rundown of what the mattress is known for, what it's made of, etc. But he couldn't answer any of our questions about what we needed, and so we bought the mattress online.
To be honest, it was a great deal. It was a hybrid memory foam mattress, which we never tried before. We then learned our second most important lesson. We are not cut out for a hybrid mattress. After of a couple of months, it was like lying on foam on top of a bed of rocks. But mattress firm like all the other chains has a pretty generous return policy. You have four months to return it and we took it.
We then tried the Mission Bay store, and explained we were there for what they call " comfort exchange" and the more junior salesperson let us know that if the exchange didn't work, we were welcome to do even another one until we were satisfied. Mark that in your mind for later.
After a lot of discussion and testing. many many mattresses, we were sold on a different hybrid mattress, with more foam, denser foam, and more coils, which we were told would make a huge difference. In the meantime, our main salesperson started randomly talking about great Trump was, how his business acumen was 2nd to none. That should've given us pause, as it turned out.. We pressed on. You might be able to guess what happened from here. Indeed, the second hybrid worked about the same as the first. After just a month, it was hard as a rock underneath the bouncy foam.
When I went to do some more research, I read our paperwork more carefully - and saw that we were only entitled to one exchange, not a number of them.
This is where Andreas, the manager of Van Ness and Mission Bay stores, comes in. . We had a number of email exchanges, and he invited us to come down to Van Ness. We then discussed at length about what bed might work best for us, what the problems had been with hybrids, and what we've been told at the Mission Bay store. He reiterated that no, you just get one exchange, and that's it, but he was willing to work with us. We tried almost every mattress in the store that was either memory foam or a standard mattress. And none of them seemed great. Being the salesperson that he is -super not pushy but super able to get you to buy what he would like to sell you-he showed us the cheapest tempurpedic, which we fell in love with. It was the mattress of our dreams, and I remembered having been in a showroom a few years ago and loving their mattresses. But they were way way out of our price range. Andreas explained that the newer inexpensive ones were better than they had been and was able to tell us why. I know mattress firm now owns them, and maybe we will regret this purchase, but I took him at his word that this would be a good choice for us. He then had his salesperson, Debra, check the outlet for returns better price. Although Andreas assured us they were all sanitized, erc. we didn't want to buy used. (but if you are willing, that is one way to get a good deal on tempurpedic, through the outlet store which also sells prior discontinued models.) So we bought a Tempur-Pedic adapt 2 .0 medium, for more than we wanted to spend, but not so much that we can't pay rent or buy food. We're well aware that even with them owning tempurpedic, they never give you a deal, as that's been true forever. .Andreas was kind enough to waive the restocking fee - I say kind in that he didn't have to do anything for us. We were asking for a second exchange, which by agreement, we were NOT entitled to, and a lot of companies might've disavowed what the salesperson told us, and penalize us for believing them.. So if you are mattress shopping and you don't want to go bed in a box, go down to the Van Ness store and ask for Andreas or Debra. They are both extremely knowledgeable about their mattresses - if they suggest something to you that's out of your price point, it's because they think it is what will work for you. I felt like I got a chance to explain all the things that had been wrong with our prior mattresses and find a solution that would work. Of course there's upselling involved in any sales experience, but this one felt authentic and helpful. So if you are shopping, get yourself down to Van Ness and find the mattress of your dreams. Tell Andreas Roberta sent you.