Mattress Shopping 101

March 10, 2009 – 12:28 pm

Mattress shopping is the most important shopping experience you will ever have. It is equally important as shopping for healthcare. After all, the right mattress can help improve your overall health, while the wrong mattress may decrease it.

How do you know if it is time to go mattress shopping? Does your mattress sag in the middle? Is it flat? Do you toss and turn all night long? Do you wake up feeling sore and achy? Has it been more than eight years since you bought a new mattress?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, it is time for a new mattress. There are many important decisions to make while mattress shopping. What size bed should you get? What type of foundation or box spring do you need? Do you have special needs that need to be met? You need to start at the basics…stay tuned to “Mattress Shopping 101.”

1. Where to Buy
Guess where the best place to buy a mattress is? Online. That may seem weird considering that you can’t feel the mattress through your computer screen. If you already know what type of mattress you want, or even if you don’t, it is often more beneficial to buy your new mattress online. Mattress price tags are much lower at online stores. These stores don’t have as much overhead costs as brick-and-mortar stores do. So, they can charge a lot less for their products. Many times, you don’t even have to pay sales tax when you buy the mattress online. You can have it shipped directly to your home and you won’t have to deal with those pesky salespeople.

2. Return Policy
Do not buy a mattress from anywhere that does not have a return policy. You should be able to try the mattress in your home for at least 30 days. Remember, mattresses feel different in your home than they do in the store. There is nothing worse than choosing the right mattress in the store and finding it all wrong when you get home. Make sure that you can try the mattress for 30, 60 or 90 days with the opportunity to get a full refund.

3. Mattress Types
There are many types of mattresses on the market today. They are pretty self-explanatory. Innerspring mattresses are made up of coils and springs. Air mattresses are filled with air. Water beds use water to distribute weight evenly and reduce pressure points. Memory foam mattresses use polyurethane foam to comfort, support and mold your body. Latex mattresses are the most popular type of mattress. They are similar to memory foam mattress and are naturally hypoallergenic (along with other benefits).

Mattress shopping can be confusing if you don’t know what you are looking for. All you have to do is follow these “Mattress Shopping 101″ tips to make your shopping experience a success.

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After testing and testing many different top memory foam bed brands, we suggest sleeping on a memory foam mattress with Foamex, or Bayer brand memory foam by Rocky Mountain Mattress.