Chinese Tariffs and Anti-dumping Duties offer relief for US mattress manufacturers

Efforts to oppose China's mattress dumping practices in the US mattress market are under way.

WASHINGTON, September 18, 2018 – Corsicana Mattress Company, Elite Comfort Solutions, Future Foam Inc., FXI, Inc., Innocor, Inc., Kolcraft Enterprises Inc., Leggett & Platt, Incorporated, Serta Simmons Bedding, LLC, and Tempur Sealy International, Inc. (collectively, the “Mattress Petitioners”) today filed an antidumping duty petition demonstrating how unfairly traded imports of foam and innerspring mattresses from China are causing material injury and threat of material injury to the US mattress industry. The petition was filed with the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission. The Mattress Petitioners allege dumping margins ranging from 267 percent to over 1,777 percent. The dumping margin is the difference between the Chinese producers’ US prices and a normal value calculated under US trade law... (read the entire press release at BedTimes Magazine)

The related press release issued by the Mattress Petitioners goes on to say that some adult mattresses from Chinese exports cost a mere $18! Obviously this leads to a damaging cut in the market share for domestic manufacturers.

The International Sleep Products Association (ISPA) encourages all US mattress producers impacted by this to immediately download and complete a questionnaire provided by the US International Trade Commission (USITC).

91% of the tonnage of imported bedding in 2017 came from China.
That's a lot of volume of cheap beds!
Source credit: ustradenumbers.com
The graphics above show that the value/ton of China imports is very undervalued compared to other listed importers.

Facing the threat of possibly retroactive duties and a new 10% tariff announced last month, Chinese imports may slow down rapidly. A quick look at the USITC questionnaire focuses on the impact this has had on your capacity and your market share.

The mattress import growth from China has been expanding for over a decade, and if you're still using the same machinery of that era, you may struggle to meet capacity demand should your market share rebound. Now is the time to assess your capabilities and your insufficiency too.

If a loss of market share in recent years has forced you to downsize staffing, you probably can't rely on new hiring to meet new production increases. Due to the current record-low unemployment rate, the manufacturing labor force is just not available. You'll need new machines that can produce more volume with less manual labor.

GSG suggests these three key machines for top productivity with minimal labor requirements:

Act now to inform the USITC about the impact of mattress dumping, then act fast to assess your changing manufacturing needs with the help of your GSG representative.