You May Not Be Getting What You Expected

I recently read an article written by a someone in the luxury linen business… someone who both manufactures and sells high quality 100% Egyptian cotton sheets and bedding products.  He quoted an excerpt from an email sent to him by a prospective customer asking why his sheets were so expensive compared to those found on eBay or in local warehouse stores.

I chuckled to myself. As an online retailer of 100% Egyptian cotton sheets, I’ve often asked myself the same question: how can people sell items on eBay for less than what I pay for them from my wholesale supplier?

The author went on to describe how he’d purchased several sets of sheets from his eBay “competition” and sent them off to a lab for analysis. After paying several hundred dollars for the lab results which included carefully counting threads under a microscope, he found out what he, (and a lot of the rest of us in the business) suspected: The sheets had been relabeled. A set that was really 200 or 300 thread count had been relabeled as 600, 800 or even 1000 thread count!

In all fairness, eBay is generally a great place to shop. I shop and sell items there myself. Most sellers are honest and ethical and eBay as ways of dealing with those who are not. Like all other shopping, Internet or otherwise, a bit of caution is in order. If a price sounds too good to be true… it probably is.

Like Luxury Hotels, Hospitals are in the business of serving their guests. Although hospital stays are often more expensive than luxury hotels, patients frequently try to forget their stays. Who wants to remember pain or sickness anyway? Why then would hospitals spend money on expensive Egyptian cotton sheet sets when they could buy sheets made from less expensive materials? Is this just one more example of waste in the American healthcare system? Hardly!

Hospitals are under intense pressure from the media, congress, taxpayers and insurance companies to cut costs. Under this pressure, they are constantly looking for ways to not only reduce initial purchase costs, but to also reduce the lifetime cost of ownership.

Hospital laundries are notoriously rough on linens, particularly due to the processes required by modern infection control standards. Normal short fiber cotton products disintegrate after only a few washings. Egyptian cotton’s long strong fibers are more resilient to this type of abuse. Although Egyptian cotton sheet sets cost more initially, they end up saving money by outliving their competition.

Luxury Hotels around the world pamper their guests with high thread count Egyptian Cotton Sheets. These hotels are far more than places to sleep, eat and have meetings. They are in the business of creating memorable experiences in an environment where were every need is supplied, every detail is attended to, and service always exceeds expectations.

Creating this environment is not easy; it requires attention to millions of details. A master chief oversees the creation of each culinary masterpiece. The Concierge must have answers for every question and resources to fill every need. Even the Bellhops, Maids and Maintenance staff are carefully trained to provide the best of everything to their guests.

Some people believe we are more likely to remember our final thoughts before going to sleep at night. Luxury hotels must believe it as well. At the end of the day, they wrap their guests in the softest most luxurious sheets in the whole word: Egyptian cotton sheets.

When I was invited to a housewarming party for one of my best friends, I instantly knew what to get her.  She and her husband had just completed their dream home and she’d found the perfect black four-poster California King sized bed for the master suite. A bed like this deserves the finest in luxury bedding so I bought her a set of Cal King Egyptian cotton sheets. 

My introduction to Egyptian cotton sheets was an accident. About 8 years ago, I had my flight home canceled due to bad weather. The airlines put us up in a 5 star hotel for the night. When I climbed into bed, I instantly noticed something different about the sheets. They were softer and thicker than normal cotton. When I asked the hotel staff, they informed me that they only used Egyptian cotton for their bedding. The following day the weather cleared and I was finally able to return home. But somehow my bed just wasn’t the same. Since then, I only use Egyptian cotton for my bed at home. I’m sure my best friend will do the same once she tries out the sheets I’m giving her.