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Mattress
Research Sources and Methodology
The sources for the research data include over 3,850 reviews
/ comments of actual mattress owners collected from at least
300 online message boards.
Message boards
Message boards are generally a far superior source for getting
unbiased and authentic mattress reviews than are product review
websites, such as Epinions or Viewpoints, where virtually anyone
can post a mattress review. People in the mattress industry
are well aware that these product review web sites exist, rank
high in the search engines and that people often base their
buying decision on what the reviews say. Therefore, it is far
from out of the question that dishonest people in the mattress
industry provide bogus reviews to sway consumer opinion one
way or the other.
By contrast, most message boards tend to exist in near obscurity
(most don't rank high in the search engines), are made up of
a tight-knit group of people, and often have safeguards against
suspicious contributors, such as someone who appears from nowhere
to contribute to a mattress-related discussion.
(Message boards generally operate by someone posting a question
and then others reply with answers. In this case, someone typically
asks others what mattress they recommend or don’t recommend.
People then reply with their opinions often based on their own
mattress ownership experience.)
High quantity of reviews means
accurate findings
For a mattress to be included in our research, we must be able
to find at least 80 owner reviews from message boards. In addition,
no one source can make up more than 20% of the total number
of reviews / comments. The large and diverse sample sizes mean
you are getting as accurate information as possible.
Safeguards to ensure precise
and impartial information
To further ensure accurate findings, several measures were taken.
Namely, no data was collected from those who indicated that
they have slept on a particular bed for less than one week since
this is often not enough time to form a solid opinion one way
or the other.
In addition, no data was collected from a message board post
that was older than six years. (90% of owner data is two years
old or less.)
Further, in cases where it was not clear if the reviewer owned
the bed, the comments were not included in the data. (Owners
were identified when they openly said they owned a particular
bed, referred to the bed as “my bed” or identified
themselves as an actual owner in some other obvious, non-ambiguous
way.)
Mattress
research FAQ
Q: Can I submit a mattress review?
A: No. We don't accept unsolicited mattress reviews to be included
in our research results because we simply cannot verify their
credibility. Our sources for information are only online message
boards and, in some cases, personal interviews.
Q: Why don't you provide mattress warranty information or
rate the customer service of mattress manufacturers and sellers?
A: In our opinion, some people make the mistake of focusing
on non-essentials when mattress shopping. They put too much
emphasis on things like warranty and customer service factors
when the most important thing, by far, is the comfort of the
mattress.
If you're going to spend seven or more hours a day on the bed,
it had better be comfortable. Unfortunately, too often we come
across a mattress owner who says something to the effect: "I
really don't like my mattress, but I bought it for the great
warranty and friendly and fast customer service."
The focus of this web site is to help you get a good night's
sleep. Therefore, we will provide you only with information
most relevant to accomplishing this.
Q: Why don't you provide information on mattress models like
you do for brands and types?
A: Most people do not know their mattress model, but they are
often aware of the type and brand. In addition, model names
from top mattress brands can differ from store to store, making
a comparison difficult, if not impossible, to do.
Q: How do your findings compare with the findings of Consumer
Reports?
For information on this, please see Consumer
Reports vs. Sleep Like The Dead.
More
information on comfort rating
The comfort
rating for each mattress was computed by dividing the
number of reviews / comments that indicated the mattress is
comfortable by the total number of reviews / comments for the
mattress (sample size).
We
at SleepLikeTheDead.com are not expert statisticians. However,
because of the large sample sizes we have collected, we believe
that our findings are accurate. In particular, we believe that
our comfort ratings have a maximum margin of sampling error
of ±5 percentage points. We believe this because no matter
how much data (information from owner reviews / comments) we
add to each brand or type, the comfort rating does extend beyond
a range of a few percentage points.
A mattress was considered comfortable by an owner if any or
all of the following conditions were met:
- The
mattress was explicitly described as comfortable.
- The
mattress was described as allowing better sleep.
- The
mattress was recommended to others.
- The
owner stated that they like the mattress.
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