Bedgear announces partnership to open 500 stores in China

Bedgear LLC, the Farmingdale-based maker of “performance” bedding and mattresses, Tuesday said it plans to roll out more than 500 Bedgear-branded retail stores in China over the next five years in a partnership with a Chinese company.

Bedgear, founded in 2009, sells mattresses, pillows and bedding through retail partners in the United States, Canada, Russia, New Zealand and Australia. But the deal with DeRucci Beddings Co. to build a chain of Bedgear Performance Sleep Shops would launch what the company called its “global expansion plan.”

“This collaboration is an incredible opportunity for us to capture the millennial consumer looking for innovative global brands,” Eugene Alletto, chief executive of Bedgear, said in a statement.

Bedgear’s lines of bedding and mattresses are made with fabrics designed to keep sleepers cool. The company seeks to fit consumers with pillows based on body type, mattress and sleep position: back, front or side.

The company distributes online and through Houston-based Mattress Firm (which acquired Long Island mattress retailer Sleepy’s for $780 million in 2016), Bed Bath & Beyond and other outlets. Though some retail stores have a Bedgear branded “store within a store,” the China initiative will mark the first Bedgear branded stores.

In February, Bedgear added mattresses to its product line. Alletto, who describes himself as the company’s quarterback/founder and CEO, said then that employment had grown from 63 in 2013 to almost 200 in Farmingdale, Rock Hill, South Carolina, and elsewhere.

Bedgear has used sports affiliations to further its marketing. It has supplied products to players on teams including the San Diego Padres, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets of Major League Baseball; the Brooklyn Nets and Dallas Mavericks of the NBA, and the Denver Broncos of the NFL.

Bedgear, whose website listed 21 job openings in Farmingdale and elsewhere on Wednesday, has manufacturing operations in Rock Hill and China.

DeRucci, based in Guangdong, China, has more than 3,000 stores in 11 countries, including the United States, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia and China, the company said.

Wang Bingkun, president of DeRucci, said in a statement he was “intrigued” by Bedgear’s showrooms and their “personalized fitting process” that could “engage today’s Chinese consumers, who are active and tech-focused and want to achieve more in their lives.”

By Ken Schachter

kenneth.schachter@newsday.comkschach

Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.