One of the earliest lessons I got in the mattress industry was the body impression problem. I sold big brand name mattresses and they developed significant body impressions in a very short time. In particular, I sold a very large, thick pillow top mattress to some friends of mine within the first year of operating my mattress retail business. They came back within six months of owning the mattress and complained about the body impressions. Being new in the business I didn’t know the protocol for handling the problem so I told them I would get hold of my mattress manufacturer’s rep and get it taken care of.
So, I called Danny (that was the name of my rep) and told him the problem. He was very helpful as he was, I’m sure, wanting to take care of his new client, and told me it had to have a 1.5″ deep dip to be covered under the warranty. This was all new to me since I had never worked in mattress sales before. But he told me he would go and inspect the mattress and if it fit the warranty, he would replace it. He did fairly quickly and agreed it needed to be replaced.
So I called my customer and told them it was not a problem, that we would replace it but I also told them that I suspected if they got the same model, it would do it again. This is where I began to suspect that polyurethane foam was junk material that body impresses and softens with use in a short time. My friends came back in my showroom and decided to a different model, one that didn’t have such a thick pillow-top.
The next time Danny came into my showroom he brought me an article published by the Better Sleep Council as you can see here in our featured image. He told me I could make copies to give out to my customers. In other words, he wanted me to try to persuade my customers to not bother us with the body impressions they hate that has developed in their bed within just two years. You have to understand, the Better Sleep Council is an arm of the International Sleep Products Association, a lobby group for the mattress industry. Mattress manufactures, especially those who are members of the ISPA, don’t want to have to tell their customers that the body impressions are normal, it would look too much like they are trying to get out of covering a faulty product. Instead, they rely on an organization that to the consumer looks like it is independent and telling consumers that these products are great, and the body impressions are to be expected, don’t complain.
All of this is total BS! They are making their products cheaper and cheaper and convincing the consumer that their cheap materials are “technologically advanced foams and fibers.” What they really are is technologically advanced cheaper/lower grade foams and fibers. If you want a real product, not garbage marketed as something it is not, please check out our Arrangement Recommendation mattresses here.