Xilinmen's king-sized factory ready
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, October 31, 2006
Shaoxing, China — A new four-story building rises on the far side of the Xilinmen Group's 2 million-square-foot complex here. It's called Building F, a 520,000-square-foot mega- mattress plant that doubles the company's production to 4,000 pieces per day.
It is, according to Xilinmen officials, the single largest mattress factory in the world. And it is taking dead aim at the U.S. market.
"The North American market is a most significant reason for the mattress plant expansion," said David Zhong, who heads North America sales for Xilinmen (pronounced SHILL-a-men).
Another reason, company officials said, is to serve the rapidly growing Chinese market for Western-style bedding.
Some 80 million people in China's population of 1.3 billion want and can afford Western styles and brand names, one Chinese bedding producer estimates.
Xilinmen's mattress factory in this old eastern China city has attracted the world's attention, including visits by a number of leading U.S. bedding producers, company officials said. They declined to reveal names.
In a brochure on the company, Xilinmen says it has been hailed as "The King of Bedding in China."
Xilinmen, which means "happiness to your doorstep" in Chinese, has been dabbling in the U.S. market for the past couple of years.
Top company officials, including Chairman Ayu Chen and Sharon Zhang, head of international sales, have been in High Point to show their line to U.S. retailers. At one point the officials even said they were considering the possibility of building a bedding plant in the United States.
Asked about that prospect by a visiting Furniture/Today reporter, Zhong replied, "It's a great idea, but it's not on the agenda now. It depends on how fast we do a feasibility study."
One possibility, he said, would be to staff the factory with workers from China.
But for now, Xilinmen is shaping its plans to grow U.S. business with bedding shipped from its monster factory here. Company officials believe the combination of high-quality bedding, low production costs, flexibility in producing differentiated products, and reliable delivery will produce strong values for U.S. retailers.
Xilinmen is looking for U.S. partners to help it tap the American market, Zhong said. It would prefer to partner with U.S. mattress makers who would become licensees, and/or with large bedding or furniture retail chains.
"The right partners are very crucial," Zhong said. Xilinmen envisions "a jointly owned brand" in the United States, with its U.S. partners enjoying exclusivity in their selling regions. Private-label programs also are welcome, he said.
A partnership with Xilinmen could prove beneficial on two fronts, Zhong said. In addition to helping a U.S. company boost its domestic business with Chinese-made mattresses, it also could provide access to the Chinese market. U.S. bedding producers could use the program to establish their own presence in China to serve the rapidly growing Chinese middle class and high-end market.
At this point, Zhong said, Xilinmen doesn't plan to compress its high-end beds for shipment to the United States, but would like to compress its low-end beds, thus making those products more competitive.
While bedding with the Xilinmen name has been shown in the United States, the company is still pondering the brand names it may market in this country. In China, Xilinmen uses the Selin, Sleemon and Fancymoon brand names for its bedding, which is featured in the company's network of 635 company-owned and franchise stores. Sleemon is the newest brand name.
Xilinmen would like to have several partners in the United States and Canada, Zhong said. They should have the ability to handle logistics, inventory and merchandising independently in their sales territories, he said.
For its part, Xilinmen is willing to share its partners' vision and business values. Zhong said his company, which he described as the largest integrated bedding producer in China, is looking forward to bringing highly profitable bedding lines to its customers.
In its promotional DVD, Xilinmen asserts that "a brand new era" is dawning for the company. Zhong said that era also is dawning for U.S. companies willing to embrace Chinese-made bedding.
