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Category Archives: Mattress Industry Secrets
How to Have a Healthy Mattress
You’ve just bought a new Parklane mattress. Congratulations! You can look forward to plenty of restful, relaxing sleep on it. Like any major purchase, however, it will require a little bit of loving care to make sure it lasts, and gives you good service. Here are some steps to follow to make sure you’ll have a healthy mattress for years to come:
- Give it time to breathe – Your new Parklane mattress has been wrapped in plastic for a while, and has that “new” smell in it as a result. After removing the wrapping, let it air for a while without laying on it. This will ensure that you detect nothing but the fresh, clean scent of newly laundered bedclothes when you do turn in.
- Allow a small amount of break-in time – Just like a person, you and your Parklane mattress will require a short getting-acquainted period, just to get used to each other. So if it feels a little rigid when you first use it, let it get used to the contours of your body. In no time at all you’ll think it was made just for you.
- Use a quality mattress cover – Your body is surprisingly busy while your sleep. Among other things, it sheds dead skin cells. These can eventually find their way into your new purchase, where they’ll make a tasty snack for any dust mites in the area. Avoid this by always using a pad or cover to protect its surface.
- Don’t let children jump on it – for that matter, don’t jump on it yourself! While this can be fun, it leads to premature component failure. A better way to work off the kid’s excess energy is with a trampoline.
- When moving the mattress, avoid folding it up if possible – This can bend coils and move interior materials out of place. Carry it at a 45 or a 90-degree angle as much as possible when bringing it into the home or moving it around.
- Give it a firm foundation to rest on – Avoid using old bedsprings if at all possible. They have likely lost much of their original support, making them poor choices for a new mattress. Use a sturdy metal bed frame with a strong central support. As a rule of thumb, queen-sized mattresses require a single metal support leg, while king-sized ones need a pair of them.
- Be careful what you use to clean it – Never use dry cleaning chemicals. They can remove color dyes, giving the mattress ugly stains. They can also leak into it, harming the foam or other supportive material. As long as you use a good cover, the only cleaning the mattress should need will be a good vacuuming every couple of months. If you do decide to wash it, though, only use water and a mild soap solution. Make sure the rag is slightly damp, never soaked, and rub it over the surface gently. Afterwards let it air dry, preferably with the help of a fan. Try to avoid letting the sun bake it, as this can weaken the top fabric and also cause it to fade.
- Rotate it occasionally – Leaving behind the endless debate over whether or not to flip a mattress, rotating it so the head becomes the tail can increase your comfort level and extend its life, by spreading out the pressure from your body’s weight more evenly.
- Don’t insert boards between the mattress and foundation – Unfortunately this is a tactic commonly used to squeeze a little more life out of an old, worn out sleep surface. Ultimately it will only damage the mattress’ interior and make it wear out quicker. When your sleep surface gets to the point that it needs help firming up, then take that as a sign that you need to replace it.
Following these guidelines will help to ensure that you enjoy your new healthy mattress for years to come. If you haven’t purchased one of our fine products, now is the time to do so. Visit us in person or use our web site.
Parklane Mattresses
The better sleep secret.
Is a Designer Mattress Worth the Money?
Big names carry big prices, but stores that sell a designer mattress use the same components as any other brand. It’s all about marketing, and the middleman hikes the cost of a mattress. In most cases, local mattress companies like Park Lane Mattresses sell products of a quality as high as prominent mattress brands; the only difference is in the assembly and price.
Even the largest mattress corporations buy their foam, thread, and fabrics from secondary manufacturers and textile factories. The best memory foam mattresses of a national company will use the same foam as a local manufacturer’s product—just as the cheap foam mattresses of both originate from the same developer. National brands simply buy these elements in higher volumes and assemble larger volumes of mattresses. A local company can produce an identical product without the added cost of shipping mattresses throughout the country.
Marketing, too, increases the price of mattresses tremendously. Brand names become prominent because their names have been pushed and advertised at high volume (and cost) across the nation, not necessarily because their product is of a higher quality. On the other hand, smaller local stores generally allocate less to their marketing budget, enabling them to lower the cost of their product. And without the high salaries of a national CEO and board of directors, sales revenue simply feeds into the wages of its local employees, which then flows back into the community, all without sacrificing product quality.
How to Compare Mattress Prices
You may be surprised—and horrified—to know that many mattress manufacturers mark their prices up by a whopping 500% or more. This has been the case for over 30 years, and looks set to continue. Naturally, large companies want to maximize their profits, but mainly this huge markup comes down to sales tactics. Over the years, mattress stores have learnt that their customers like big discounts. By marking the prices up so high, they can offer a generous discount, make the customer think that they are getting a great deal, and still make a massive profit. Plus, this kind of outrageous markup and industry-wide scheme makes it hard for shoppers to compare mattress prices.
Here at Parklane Mattresses, we strive to keep our prices low, so that everyone—regardless of their budget—can afford a great night’s sleep. Because we design and build our own mattresses, we cut out the middle man and deal directly with our customers. This allows us to deliver a high level of quality and great customer service, at a very reasonable price. Our materials, technology and techniques are no different to those used by the major mattress manufacturers. When you browse our range of mattresses online, you can clearly see that our prices are significantly lower than those of our main competitors. Take the Vale mattress, for example. This is the equivalent to the Sealy Embody, the Serta Pure Response Active Euro and the Simmons Comforpedic Oakland Plush. The Vale costs $1,999.00—no dealer markup, no added extras—while the comparative models cost $2,969.00, $2,779.00 and $2,239.00 respectively. Why pay over the moon for what is essentially the same product? Whichever of our mattresses you are interested in, you can compare mattress prices with 3 other retailers.
A good quality mattress is an important purchase and an investment that should give you support and comfort for many years. We pledge to continue to make this an option for a wider range of people by keeping our costs low. Backed up with our 30-night Comfort Guarantee, this is all part of the commitment to our customers that has been at the heart of our business since 1921.
Why US Mattresses are Super-Sized Compared to European Mattresses
The accessibility and convenience of the Internet means that nowadays many shoppers purchase goods from other countries. If you are buying bedding from an international company, you need to make sure you’re buying the right size for your mattress. To make matters even more confusing, different countries use different names for certain sizes of mattress. A king size pillow top mattress, for example, is a different size in the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia.
To make things easier for you, get to know the different US sizes first. In general, American mattresses are available in the following sizes: Twin (39 x 75 inches); Double/Full (54 x 75 inches); Queen (60 x 80 inches); King (76 x 80 inches); California King (72 x 84 inches); and Grand King (80 x 98 inches).
The European sizes are: Twin (35 x 79 inches); Double (55 x 79 inches); Queen (63 x 79 inches); and King (71 x 79 inches). When you compare the dimensions of American mattresses with European mattresses, you can see that US models are super-sized compared to their European counterparts. There is a veritable plethora of reasons why US mattresses are bigger—possibly including larger people, bigger spaces, larger apartments/homes. The main thing to remember is that these sizes are general, and the precise length and width of a mattress can vary a great deal between manufacturers. Additionally, some European brands may use US sizes, which is even more baffling!
When you are deciding what size of mattress to buy, bear in mind a few factors. Is the mattress for one person only, or for a couple? How tall and/or heavy is the largest person who will be sleeping on it? What room is the mattress going into? This will dictate how large of a mattress you can accommodate. What other furniture will be going into the room with the mattress—like nightstands, for example? You want a mattress that is big enough for you, but not so large that it completely dominates a room.
After you have bought your mattress and have turned your attention to bedding, write down the exact measurements so that you can be sure everything is going to fit perfectly—the best recipe for a great night’s sleep!
Top 10 Mattress Factory Secrets
1. You could be jeopardizing your mattress factory warranty if you are not using an adequate support system for the mattress. Make sure you clarify the terms of your warranty before you complete the purchase, to avoid any nasty shocks further down the line.
2. Register your warranty card within 30 days of purchase to activate the warranty. If you don’t do this, your warranty will be compromised. This applies whether you purchase from an online mattress store or regular store.
3. The main cause of mattress deterioration is moisture. Keep your mattress protected, and stay healthy, by fitting a mattress protector to your bed. This will enhance the quality of your sleep and extend the life of the mattress.
4. A latex mattress is the best type for fighting allergens. Hypoallergenic, mold- and dust mite-resistant and anti-microbial, they are by far the best choice if you are sensitive to allergies.
5. If you notice your bed developing a ridge or hump down the center, or on one side, this is not a sign that the mattress is defective and needs to be replaced. It is simply a sign of unequal compression layers across the surface. Everybody tends to sleep on one particular area of their mattress, night after night, resulting in unequal wear on the comfort layers. To even this out, simply sleep in the middle, or the other side, of your mattress every so often.
6. The quantity and type of coil affects the comfort and support level of a mattress. If a company doesn’t provide this information, ask for it! For example, our Brentwood mattress consists of 884 individually-wrapped pocketed coils.
7. Different mattresses are best suited to different sleeping positions. Most people sleep on their sides, but there are those who prefer to sleep on their backs or their stomachs. Ask your mattress provider to recommend a mattress designed for your particular sleeping habits. Our Sequoia mattress, for example, is recommended for those who sleep on their backs.
8. Mattresses are 85% recyclable. For the most environmentally-friendly way to dispose of your old mattress, take advantage of our mattress recycling service; for a small fee we will collect and deliver your old mattress, as part of the innovative St. Vincent De Paul program. Be responsible and don’t let your mattress end up in a landfill!
9. Passing an unwanted mattress to someone else is not as good an idea as you may think. Every 8 years or so, a mattress doubles in weight as a result of the accumulation of moisture, dead skin cells, dust mites and other allergens. It is far better to recycle your old mattress (see above)!
10. An eco-friendly mattress is not necessarily the more expensive option. Our Aurora mattress, made of 100% Talalay latex, only costs from $749 for a twin size.
We make mattress shopping easy, really. How did we do that?
Over the past 30 years the mattress industry has made shopping for a new mattress one of the more tedious and difficult experiences for their customers, Parklane is dedicated to changing this experience. Parklane has been hand making mattresses in Portland since 1921 and takes great pride in every model we sell. Even though we make a higher quality product than the national brands we realized most customers first impression in a store when shopping for a mattress will greatly impact the satisfaction the customer has with the mattress they purchase. The mattress industry uses a unique vocabulary when describing their product and purposefully makes it difficult to compare products. Parklane tries to eliminate much of this by providing comparisons of our models on our website to each of the national brands Sealy, Serta, and Simmons. Moreover we focus on fitting the mattress to the person, we want to sell the right mattress to provide the proper support and help you sleep better, in our opinion the best way to make a happy customer is help them sleep better. With this philosophy you may see the rarest suggestion in mattress shopping – spending less, we will recommend a $799 mattress set that fits how you sleep over a $1299 mattress set that does not work with how you or your partner sleeps.
Stop by any of our 8 locations and see how we make mattress shopping easy and start sleeping better this week.
Parklane’s Store Locations: Find A Store – Click Here -
