Thread: Is this the Most Expensive Bed in the World?

Came across this website: hastens

An article here indicates that the price range is from $20,000 to $75,000.

Any one with any experiences on this? The pricing is just jaw dropping but I'm really curious as to whether or not it's justified. If it is then I know what I'm getting after I win the lottery.

For the wealthy, it Hästens sleep. For the rest of us, it Hästens... bankruptcy? But you may be the only person in bankruptcy court who is sleeping well at night.

This reminds me of a true story.

In the 1960's, Ferruccio Lamborghini was an Italian industrialist, and owner of a successful factory that produced farm tractors. He had the money to buy several fine cars, and among those was a Ferrari. During the course of ownership of the Ferrari, it needed a new clutch. Rather than send the car to the Ferrari factory for repair and have it gone several weeks, he instructed his very capable lead tractor foreman to replace the clutch on the Ferrari. The next morning his foreman walks into his office and puts a new clutch assembly on Ferruccio's desk and says "This is the clutch from Ferrari and it cost $ 550,000 lira for it". He then unwraps a second piece and puts it on the desk, a clutch identical in all aspects to the first "This is the clutch from one of our tractors and it costs us $ 50,000 lira". And it was at that moment that Ferruccio learned of 'added value' marketing and decided to get into the exotic car business, because there was serious money to be made in profits. A few years after the clutch enlightenment, he built the brand becoming the Lamborghini we know today.

Another one.

In the early 1990's I sold more handcrafted Windsor Chair replicas than anyone in the USA. My store was THE place to get American windsors (hence my logo) at the best price, and I learned how to ship all over the world with them. There was a chairmaker in Connecticut named Jerry Dunfries who prided himself on having a fantastic, handmade windsor chair that was very expensive, three times the price of the ones I had in my store from D.R. Dimes, Warren Chair Works, and others. We say Jerry frequently (he was friends with my parents) and one day we're having a discussion out in the driveway of his home in Connecticut. Jerry says "I can't believe you sell that machine made junk from Dimes and Warren and won't put my chairs in your store." I looked at Jerry and said to him "How can you call it junk? You make yours the same way." Gerry insists he does not. So I press him, because I have a keen eye and KNOW how he makes his chairs, I can see it in the wood... "You're not hand-turning every leg and arm post on a lathe are you? And you are buying your seat blanks from an outside supplier and cleaning them up by hand, correct? Plus, those are not hand-hewn spindles in your chairs but smooth round ones done on a duplicator that I assume you get from a mill, yes?" Jerry nodded that I was correct in all my observations. "So what makes your chair worth three times as much, since you are building them the exact same way?" Jerry stammered around for a few seconds and came up with "Well, I consult with each customer personally before I work on their order and get make them to their specifications, then stamp and sign each one personally."

SIZZLE.

When I see bedding like Hastens, I have to ask myself "How much of this is sizzle, and how much is steak?" What portion is 'value-added' marketing? Certainly an 8 month wait list is a sign that production and availability is controlled to keep market forces and demand high for the product.

Your job as a consumer is to sort through it! If the $ 2,000 bed is twice as durable and comfortable as the $ 1,000 bed then you're getting your money's worth (steak). If the $ 4,000 bedding set is 1/3 better than the $ 2,000 bed you're still getting value for dollars spent (steak). But if the $ 20,000 bed is only 5% better than the $ 4,000 bed - you're buying sizzle.

And there is nothing wrong with buying sizzle, because it can be fun (my wife shows me a LOT of designer handbags with lots of zeros on the price tag and I classify all of them over $ 500 as sizzle, much to her chagrin), but if you can afford it and it makes you happy, then why not?

The trick is to get mostly steak for your hard-earned money, and maybe just a little sizzle. The art becomes learning where the line is drawn. I can pretty much stake my reputation that a $ 75,000 bed is pretty far deep into sizzle territory....