How Saatva Luxury Mattress Reduces Complexity [video]

Saatva Luxury Mattress reduces complexity for the customer. Because of this, Saatva reviews are overwhelmingly positive. And, we know that complexity almost always equals higher cost. Taiichi Ohno said it this way. Taiichi Ohno is known for having explained The Toyota Production System (also known as Lean Manufacturing) in the following way:

All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value adding wastes.

But the thing about waste or muda is that they are often all around us and yet they are not recognized or seen. Often, innovation occurs when waste is identified when many others have ignored it.

Enter, Saatva Mattress. Incidentally, we interviewed the CEO of Saatva Matress, on the state of the Mattress Industry.

Shopping for Luxury Mattress Becomes Easier

Mattress shopping is an overly and unnecessarily complicated task. Yet, the experience of many people is that shopping for a mattress is actually hard work. From the Wall Street Journal:

Selling a good night’s sleep is big business”and buying one is complicated. All the mattress types and technologies”individual coil, single coil, “green” latex – not to mention the many delivery promises, warranties and return policies, make for a dizzying shopping experience. Prices alone, which start in the hundreds and quickly rise into the thousands of dollars, are enough to make a shopper lose sleep.

Why is something so simple and so commoditized hard to do?

Too Many Mattress Choices

As the wall street journal article indicates, way, way too many choices: individual coil, single coil, green, eco, and so on.

Too Many Mattress Marketing Gimicks

Whenever I drive by a furniture or mattress store, it seems like everything is on Sale – all the time. Consider the mattress advertisement below – are you confused yet?

In fact, the Consumer Reports says the following after trying to compare mattresses across brands:

Shopping for a mattress, the magazine concluded, can be a nightmare.

In a 2000 article in Slate Magazine, they put jumped on the mattress shopping test also and here’s their conclusion:

Here’s the lowdown: Mattress makers rename identical products for each different retail store. Different labels, exact same guts. Why? Obfuscation. It’s hard to shop for the lowest price when you can’t compare apples to apples. Lucky for you, they’re all subtle variations on the same apple”not only within each brand, but even among different brands.

How’s that for a nice customer experience: confuse your customer.

In Bed with Confusion

According to Ron Rudzin, CEO of Saatva, brick-and-mortar mattress stores are a type of waste. He claims that the myth of being able to decide if a mattress is right for you by laying on it for 2 minutes is false.

Discount Mattress and Competition

In his words,

I’m surprised people think trying a bed out in a store for 2 minutes gives a true indication of how they’ll sleep on it. I say, sleep on our bed for 30 days, and then decide if it’s right for you. Millions of people have walked out of the finest luxury hotels in the world revitalized with an incredible night’s sleep. The satisfaction rate on true luxury products is remarkably high, and that’s what we strive for. Our mattresses are built with a unique coil on coil construction. The universal comfort on our “Luxury Firm” is achieved through the top portion of our mattress which is designed with individual pocketed coils, allowing the mattress to contour perfectly to any body shape, weight or sleeping position. This is coupled with the use of some of the finest materials available in luxury mattresses today. We know our customers will be thrilled with our bed. That’s why we offer such a strong return policy.

Because of the online-only model and no inventory sitting idle in brick-and-mortar stores, Saatva is able to offer highly reduced prices for luxury mattresses. From the customer’s perspective, this is a great. In the brick-and-mortar mattress world, the customer pays for the following:

Clearly, we have shown customers there is a way to buy a luxury mattress that would normally cost them about $2,400 in a store for less then $1,000. We are the only pure online luxury mattress company. Because of our “no store” philosophy, we are not burdened with the tremendous costs and expenses that are incurred by traditional retailers, such as rent, store maintenance, utilities and excessive salaries/commissions. Our internet only business model is the most efficient in our industry and we eliminate all the confusion in mattress buying.

How To Buy a Mattress

How to buy a mattress is a great question and one that many people ask. You can certainly look at mattress reviews and read up on the best mattress brands, but at the end of the day, you’ll just need to lay on the bed and give it a shot. And, let your back and how you feel in the morning tell you which mattress is best for your bad back and what will give you the best sleep.

In general, consider these and ask these questions as you consider how to buy a mattress:

• What is the best mattress for back pain?
• Do I want a soft mattress or a firm mattress?
• Is memory foam mattress for me? Or a Spring Air Mattress?
• Do you really get what you pay for, or can I buy a cheap mattress and still feel good?
• What mattress sizes do I need? Is a full size mattress for me?

Mattress Shopping Made Simple

Another reason why Saatva is one of the top rated mattresses is that the buying process reduces confusion. To reduce confusion, Saatva also follows the In ‘n’ Out burger philosophy of offering just a few great choices. Being transparent is also a key goal of the company, fighting the obfuscation tide that describes the other mattress companies:

Most importantly, we wanted to make sure that every customer feels that they are dealing with a company that is totally transparent. We do a variety of marketing for Saatva, but word of mouth is the key to success in this new world of sharing information. Additionally, we wanted the site to be easy to navigate. We just want to keep things simple. We know we have an extraordinary product, and we believe we have made it simple for our customers to come to that conclusion.

Green and Eco-Friendly Mattress

And, yes, Saatva is also eco-friendly and their mattresses have also earned the chiropractic seal of approval and is considered an Ortho Mattress:

A mattress cannot have the Chiropractic Seal of Approval without conforming to a number of strict standards for back and spinal health. At Saatva, we have included a “spinal zone”, adding extra support just where you need it most and thereby qualifying for the COCSA seal.

The Congress of Chiropractic State Associations was formed in the late 1960’s and is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to the advancement of the chiropractic profession.

I recently wrote the CEO of Saatva, hoping he’ll answer a few of my questions on manufacturing and their application of lean manufacturing in their production process.