AN AUSTRALIAN firm that sells mattresses online is moving its manufacturing base to Blackburn.

Sleeping Duck has selected ICON Designs, based at St Ives Business Park, to manufacture its revolutionary Titan mattresses for the UK market.

MORE TOP STORIES:

Winston Wijeyeratne, joint founder of Sleeping Duck said: “We were considering UK manufacturing for this market when ICON approached us.

“For us, the main reason for the move was around inventory management as, manufacturing overseas means our mattresses arrive already compressed and rolled, which means they have a limited shelf life.

“Manufacturing here will allow us to compress and roll the mattress only when it is ready to be delivered to the customer, thus allowing us to keep significantly more in stock to meet demand.

“We were impressed by ICON Design’s reputation and the fact they allowed us to be involved in managing the process.”

Sleeping Duck will be using ICON Design to manufacture its Titan mattress for the UK market and its planned expansion into mainland Europe.

Keith Hampson, director of ICON Design, said: “We were intrigued by Sleeping Duck and its purely online offering and approach them.

“They are proving to be hugely successful in Australia and we anticipate this will be replicated in the UK. We look forward to manufacturing their quality TITAN mattress for the European market.”

Sleeping Duck offers UK customers one customisable mattress – the Titan to buy online with a 100 day return policy if it’s not suitable. The revolutionary mattress allows customers to vary the firmness and feel of the mattress to ensure they get a great night’s sleep. It comes in two versions – medium and firm.

Sleeping Duck was founded by Australians Winston Wijeyeratne and civil engineer Selvam Sinnappan.

The duo saw the UK market was also flooded with the same poor retail practices as the Australian industry, so they decided to bring Sleeping Duck to the UK.

During its first year in Australia in 2014 Sleeping Duck cracked $1million in sales in its first 10 months of operation.