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It's price discrimination.

The market for a $1,095 mattress wouldn't be caught dead shopping at CostCo, even if it's the exact same mattress.

The "Select" branding isn't there to bamboozle them, it's to help them rationalize paying $500 more to be known as someone above shopping at CostCo.

Casper wants one person's $1,095, and another's $599, so they use branding and channel differentiation to scoop $1,694 from both sales, instead of $1,095 for just one, or $1,198 for both.

If we presume their cost is $400, then they go from $398 in margin (two sales at $599) or $695 in margin (one sale at $1,095) to $894 in margin. That's good business!



>The market for a $1,095 mattress wouldn't be caught dead shopping at CostCo, even if it's the exact same mattress.

That's quite an assumption you're making there. I buy a lot of what I need from CostCo, I also spent over $1k on a mattress and have spent further thousands on high quality bedding.

It's erroneous to conflate CostCo with cheap. They're a members only buying club which tends to buy high quality stock in huge quantities, taking advantage of the economies of scale on offer to them.

Plus Zuckerberg shops there. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/03/photo-facebook-billionaire-m...


what?

Costco isn't for the poors - if anything it's the preferred destination of the upper middle suburban class. they sell high ends things. a lot of it.

i'm guessing Casper's main customer base is, again, cash-strapped millennials, so to argue that these customers are somehow above Costco is a strange take.


Costco members average household income is over 100K — it’s a Top 20% demographic.


I know many people in top 1% income bracket that shop Costco. If anything, I feel like flat fee to become a member disincentivizes poorer people.


Must be my suburb. The demographic at my local CostCo is obviously not the 1% demographic, not even close.


This is HN, let’s use anecdata!

“Darien (/dɛəriˈæn/) is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States 37 miles northeast of New York City. With a population of 20,732 for the 2010 census and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's "Gold Coast". It also has the youngest population of any non-college town in Connecticut and has a high rate of marriage. Darien is one of the wealthiest communities in the U.S.; listed at #2 on CNN Money's list of "top-earning towns" in the United States as of 2010. Bloomberg's 2019 "America's 100 Richest Places" ranking placed Darien in the top 10, with an average household income of $341,090.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien,_Connecticut

So Darien is where they put the Costco:

https://www.storeopeninghours.com/costco-darien-ct

Across the street further towards Norwalk are Homegoods, Walmart, Stop-and-Shop, etc. Further into Darien, Trader Joes and Whole Foods.

The 6 figure crossovers are all parked at Costco and the Darien grocers.




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