An Assortment and Foreign Trade of Bedding Items
2008
Ilze Baltiņa, Aija Siksnāne

To help manufacturers of bed-clothes in Latvia as the aim of the work has been put forward to consider assortment of import bed-clothes and the foreign trade tendencies. To study assortment of import bedding items, the analysis of offers in the internet catalogues has been carried out. For February 2008 it has been concluded that catalogues Quelle (Q), Anttila (A), Hobby-hall (H) are catalogues which at present offer the widest assortment of bedding items. In the work it has been considered the types of complete sets, a variety of colours, sizes and fiber material. The quantity of the offered subjects in the complete set varies from one to six products. Often a variety of colours has been proposed having kept the same model and drawing. The biggest variety of colours is for the simplest products of bedding items, for example such as bed-sheets. There is very big version of the sizes for the same subjects. Basically the cotton printed bedding items are offered. The offered assortment can be divided on two categories: bed-clothes in pastel and bright colours. Basically manufacturers give the chance to the buyer to choose the same model in pastel and bright tones, thus creating wide assortment which answers various tastes. Basically there are motives of flowers, the nature, animals and images of fairy tales. Certainly it is impossible to exclude a classical checks and strips. To examine versions of printed drawings it is possible to tell that basically the motive of drawing on all material dominates, but there are drawings which only partially cover a material or are concentrated in one place of bedding item. The one-colour bedding items meet less often and basically it is bed-sheets. Basically in products dominates plain, sateen, and also various derivative weaves. On the bases of the database of the Central Board of Statistics of Latvia the analysis of import and export from 2004 till 2007 year has been carried out. As a result of the analysis it is visible that volumes of import of bedding items increase. The cotton woven and nonwoven printed and unprinted bedding items are most of all imported. The big suppliers are Finland, China, Lithuania, Denmark, Pakistan, Estonia, India and Italy. The difference of the prices is obviously visible. Products under the lowest prices are received from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Norway and China. It is possible to tell that consumers of Latvia appreciate materials of natural fibres because on the third place are products from flax and ramie. Comparatively the bedding items from chemical fibres, with impurity of chemical fibres and knitted bedding items are less imported. The volume of export exceeds the volume of import. It is necessary to mention that from 2004 till 2006 volume of the export increases, but in the 2007 it starts to decreased. Latvia basically exports bedding items of the same groups that imports. Most of all export of printed cotton woven bedding items is spent to Sweden, Norway, Finland and Austria, and unprinted cotton woven bedding items is spent to Austria, Germany, Denmark, Lithuania and Estonia. It is necessary to note that very few Latvia exports linen bedding items. It needs to be considered in the future. The producers need to think about the new technologies. The smart textiles can be one of such ways.


Keywords
Gultasveļa, palags, segas pārvalks, spilvendrāna, sortiments, ārējā tirdzniecība, imports, eksports

Baltiņa, I., Siksnāne, A. An Assortment and Foreign Trade of Bedding Items. Material Science. Textile and Clothing Technology. Vol.3, 2008, pp.45-61. ISSN 1691-3132.

Publication language
Latvian (lv)
The Scientific Library of the Riga Technical University.
E-mail: uzzinas@rtu.lv; Phone: +371 28399196