When one walks into a store, they often think the price on the sticker is the price they have to pay. As it turns out, this is often not the case—especially when it comes to mattresses.
A video on this topic from Finance Fran (@financefran) recently went viral. In the video, Fran wrote, “Did you know you can negotiate mattress prices?”
“Almost every bed has at least a 47% margin,” she continued. “They say ‘this mattress is $1200,’ and you say ‘I’d like to pay $700’ and sometimes they say ‘ok.’ It takes zero effort and is thrilling.”
Later, another TikToker, Taylor Perkins (@justthetip.x), stitched the video with his own experience negotiating a lower mattress price. The video currently has over 2.2 million views.
@justthetip.x #stitch with @Finance Fran we slept so well everynight.. partly because we knew we didnt overpay and got a bomb deal 😂 #taylorstips #financialliteracy #negotiatelikeaboss #mattress ♬ Bejeweled – Taylor Swift
In the video, Taylor said he initially learned of this tip around four years ago when he and his wife were trying to buy a mattress.
“We went into a Mattress Firm, we found, you know, a mattress for $3,500 bucks that we loved,” he recalled. “I talked to the sales guy and I was like, ‘What is the best that you can do? I know that you can give me a discount.’ Got him down to, like, $1,800.”
From there, Taylor said they went to another Mattress Firm and found another sales representative. He said he told this sales representative that another store had offered them the mattress for $1,400.
“The person was like, ‘Man, I guess we could do $1,200 and throw in some pad or something like that,’” Taylor said. “We felt amazing. We got a $3,500 mattress for like $1,200.”
So can you really negotiate the price of a mattress? Experts say yes.
In 2015, HuffPost interviewed Kuperszmid Lehrman, a department content editor for Consumer Reports. Lehrman told readers to “never ever pay whatever the retail price is.”
“Lehrman told HuffPost you can negotiate the asking price of a mattress down by as much as 50 percent in some cases, and if you go to a large mattress retailer such as Mattress Firm or Mattress Giant, chances are ‘you can negotiate on everything. The price, whether or not they pick up or take away your old one, the delivery fee — everything is up for grabs,’” the article reads.
Back on TikTok, users shared their mattress tips in the comments section of Taylor’s video.
“Tip from my older client: if you go at the end of the month, they are more likely to give a bigger discount as they are trying to meet their quotas,” one user wrote.
“Go straight to the manufacturer,” another advised. “Been buying from a warehouse for 25 years. Pay 1/4 price and they make it custom.”
“Also true about custom closets, windows, roofs, etc.,” a third stated. “Literally shocked when i learned.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Finance Fran via email and Taylor via Instagram direct message.
