Mattress comparisons - How to

Step 2. Select three or four retailers

We are initially going to look at Dreams/Bensons/Furniture Village/John Lewis to see what they have to offer for a budget of around £1500.

This will of course just be your starting point and no doubt further on you will be looking at other mattress retailers, such as IKEA or other online mattress companies (avoiding bed in a box if you can) to see if what you eventually find can be bettered. Marks & Spencers, Vispring and Savoir (if you’re incredibly lucky) may also play a part in your new mattress search.

Try not to pick retailers purely on sales or discount promises, we have uncovered here why all retail mattress sales need to be taken with a pinch of salt. In fact, we recommend you download our free mattress buyers guide before choosing retailers as it will help provide you with a guide to choosing mattresses. It contains all the bed buying information that retailers don’t want you to know!

Step 3. Start compiling your notes

The form below is a much-simplified version of what we ourselves use when looking at products from various manufacturers. It will tell you at a glance all the information you need to know and to whom to refer back to for more detail. Our mattress comparison tool actually does all this for you which can save you time.

The point of this valuable exercise is to quickly and effortlessly give you a starting point to show you what is actually out there for the price you are willing to pay. You may find that you don’t need to spend £1500 or conversely, you may find that what you see does not meet your requirement and you may have to up your bed buying budget! This first step will help you easily identify what you can and can’t expect for your price point.

Remember, This is just the starting point so jot down the first ten products that fit into your budget trying to keep your choices relatively similar in price. This is to make you aware of what a particular budget can get you.

For the sake of this example we have found our John Ryan Artisan Luxury Kingsize Mattress retailing at £1525 (Of course we have!) and we want to see if there is anything similar out there to compare it against – let us get Started.
[All prices correct as of 29/5/2013 – all models are Kingsize]

*No actual price given on John Lewis site: States this model is available between £1400 – £1600.

Step 4. Springs and upholstery comparison

So now you know what £1500 or so can get you – you need to remove about four or five models that may not be worth considering further and itemise the remaining models as much as you can about the two most important factors pocket springs and upholstery.

Remembering: Pocket springs tension is based on your bodyweight whereas mattress upholstery provides the ultimate soft/medium/firm feel of the mattress.

Why did we remove the models we did?
Dreams Resplendent: Memory foam mattress – Not comparable to the others in the selection.
Bensons Claremont: Inferior by comparison
Dreams Lincoln: Inferior by comparison.
John Lewis Angora: One Sided – Not comparable to the others in the selection.

Step 5. Examine the detail of the mattress

We now have four models all between £1400 – £1500. What we have to do now is to examine the Intrinsic Detail of the upholstery. The springs themselves are so similar (like for like)  it does not become a consideration. The difference in spring counts are also so nominal at 150 actual pockets it will not affect the user in any shape or form.

We can see from all the descriptions above that they all contain a similar degree of upholstery component: namely wool/cotton/horsetail and horsehair. This is what you would expect to find in mattresses retailing for this price. No polyester and no foams in any disguise whatsoever.

We can also see that the combined upholstery weights differ between 3250 GSM and 4600 GSM.  A difference of quite a substantial 1350 GSM. There is also a model with an unknown quantity of upholstery weight! This requires further information from the retailer – it may be that this upholstery weight will come in greater than 4600 GSM or it may turn out that it is less than 3250 GSM, in which case you will be able to discard that model also from your considerations.

How do different mattress upholstery types feel or cost?

Once you’re at this stage you’re really just comparing upholstery, everything between the spring unit and the fabric on top of the mattress. As of now, all you know about the above mattresses are that they contain similar components. You need to understand which components are considered ‘good’ and which are considered ‘less than good’. You can only do this if you know what’s what which is where considerations on upholstery need to be looked at. You can view our super-detailed guide here.

Summary

So there we have it, the best way to compare what you can get for your money when buying a mattress. Obviously this takes some time but is well worth it if you’re wanting to find the perfect mattress. Comparing by budget alone will not help you identify the great quality options from the poorer mattresses.

The following post on mattress upholstery will break down the upholstery elements contained in the mattresses above to show you that once you know the basics of upholstery layers it becomes an incredibly easy task to look at a mattress and decide whether it is worth investigating further.

Need help with comparing mattresses?  Get in touch with us on 0161 437 4419 for tailored recommendations.