Like many companies, Valencia Dupen was forced to go to bed and sleep as soon as the alarm situation was announced to combat covid in March 2020. However, as soon as the quarantine was over, the maker of bedding and other accessories for rest woke up hyperactive, so much so that it had to work its staff 24 hours a day, three shifts, seven days a week, to cope with the resulting demand. with the seclusion and savings of those weeks when many families rediscovered their homes and decided to renovate them, including their bedrooms.
Dupen has already surpassed half a century of history. As the owner explains, Enrique Duartwas founded by his father in 1966 in Benifaió, a town in the south of Valencia, where the grandfather of this business dynasty ran a textile shop. “My father worked with his father, but he wanted to own his own business, and then he thought of building a pillow factory in the basement with scraps from his father’s shop.” Initially, the products were sold to individuals and certain furniture stores in the municipality and other surrounding towns. “And it worked so well that he started hiring workers, turned facilities into larger plants, and expanded his product range: he started producing metal bed bases and later mattresses in addition to pillows,” he recalls. HANDSstating that at the moment the company “produces everything related to sleep, including headboard and mattress”
Thirty years after the founding of the company, Dupen took another step by entering the marketing field. In 1996, the founder of the company decided to become his own dealer in areas where he did not have a distributor, and took the first step to create a chain of establishments under the Dormitienda brand that still exists in many Spanish towns. However, the commercial network started in the nearest region, especially in the city of Valencia, because the distributor in that region was about to retire and there was no one to replace it. Expansion continued throughout the rest of the Valencian Community and north of Spain. Domitienda sold products manufactured by Dupen.
With the generational change, this bond has been broken, brothers HANDS Half a year ago they decided to make a shareholding split. Enrique Dupen stayed with the band and monicawith Dormitienda, which at that time already reached 80 establishments.
After this decision, HANDS It is in the process of expanding its mattress manufacturer, a company that produces 1,100 of these products per day in its facilities in Alginet with an area of 60,000 square meters. With a workforce of 130 people, Dupen had a turnover of twenty million euros last year and plans to reach 27 by 2022, an increase of 35%. The businessman is immersed in the process of further professionalization of the workforce, digitalization of the company, its implementation in production and logistics, and marketing promotion. For this latest effort, Dupen recruited 12 people from the industry who contributed to their portfolio for their sales team. Its mission is towards the Spanish market.
Later, the firm plans to expand the now four-person international division to include more countries. And that the company currently sells to 60 countries and 40% of its turnover comes from abroad. Of course, the war in Ukraine halted sales to Russia, which accounted for 25% of exports before the conflict.
Again, HANDS optimistic: “The war will end and business will be done with Russia again even if the sanctions continue. Also these conflicts are an opportunity because the country needs to be rebuilt. We should not lose hope”.