Thread Count, Fill Power and Other Misleading Numbers
7th October 2026
the true count was only 249. Macy’s ultimately settled the case for $10.5M. The court estimated the class at “around 2.5 million individuals,” everyone who bought one supplier’s cotton-poly sheets from Macy’s over nearly 10 years.
If the lawsuit was right, then Macy’s number was simply false. But a true number can mislead just as well. In almost every industry I’ve looked at, manufacturers print numbers that sound precise but tell you very little about the product on their own.
Thread count, down fill power, horsepower and hardness ratings are a few examples of common measurements that manufacturers love to quote. Manufacturers print them not to inform, but to drive sales.
For today’s article I picked five numbers I know well. For each of them, I’ll explain what the number actually measures, what it leaves out, and what to check instead.