The importance of guarantees (crazier the better?)

My wife and I recently bought a Casper mattress. You seen these things?

Our old mattress was foam, too. But, it was 12 years old. We bought it before we were even married. It was so old that it even had holes where we slept! Like, the part of the bed I slept on was like an inch or two lower than the rest of it. It was like sleeping in a pit!

Of course, I’m not exactly light as a feather, but that’s an issue for another day. 😉

So, we bought a Casper. The Casper is one of the “bed in a box” mattresses that you can buy online. Exclusively online.

There are other ones. The Leesa, the Purple, yada yada.

But, buying a bed sight unseen on the internet?! Are we crazy!

Thing is, it saves a lot of money to buy a bed this way. To buy an equivalent bed in a traditional mattress store would cost you as much as $4,000. It is just ASININE to think what something as simple as a hunk of foam sells for in those stores.

But, a bed is kind of a personal thing. The mattress stores have that unique selling proposition still that you can see the bed in person and try it before you buy it. Despite the fact that you’re going to have to listen to a salesman try to make a bed sound like it was made by NASA or something… it is still nice to try it in person first.

How do these online companies get around that?

With an insane guarantee.

It is pretty much standard with these “bed in a box” companies to have a 100-night guarantee. You can try the bed for 100 nights after purchase. If you don’t like it, they’ll give you your money back and they’ll send somebody out to haul the mattress out of your house.

It is complete risk reversal. It removes risk from me as the customer and puts it on them. Without that guarantee, I would not have forked over the $1100 I spent on the Casper.

Might some people abuse that guarantee? Perhaps. It is possible. But, I can bet you their sales far outweigh any costs of a few deadbeats trying to get a free bed for 100 nights.

So, you should take this into account for any product or service you are selling on your site.

The people scoping out your offer don’t know you, most likely. They value their hard-earned money. They’re afraid of getting screwed.

How can you put their fears at bay with an insane guarantee? One that stands out?

See ya tomorrow. 🙂

– David