History
Bearings Limited - A Family Business With Business Savvy
Founded in 1947, Bearings Limited began as a small family business selling bearings, with six employees operating out of just a few thousand square feet in New York City. Relying on local trade, the company took a family approach, providing excellent service and treating customers and employees as if they were relatives.
Successful growth forced the company to seek a larger location during the 1960s, so Bearings Limited purchased and moved into a 14,000 square-foot building in Long Island City, Queens in 1965. Its ample space enabled Bearings Limited to significantly increase inventory levels and better serve a growing number of customers in Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island.
Importing Bearings
As their customer base expanded over the next 10 years, so did Bearings Limited, which more than tripled in size. The company could no longer rely solely on surplus purchases to service customers. To maintain a more consistent supply of high quality bearings, Bearings Limited established direct relationships with overseas manufacturers and began importing bearings. With new product sources came the need for more space, so Bearings Limited relocated in 1977 to a 28,300 square foot facility in Hauppauge NY.
Exiting The Surplus Business
Bearings Limited's decision to import bearings was visionary. Not only did sales flourish but supply levels and service increased so dramatically that Bearings Limited made a strategic decision in the early 1980s to exit the surplus business. Bearings Limited then ramped up overseas purchasing and began offering customers Japanese and Chinese bearings as well as traditional European makes.
Expansion Plan
With increasing inventories came demand from distributors throughout the US. To further improve service and provide just-in-time delivery nationwide, Bearings Limited implemented a five-year growth plan while opening four regional warehouses and sales offices in the early 1990's. Phase Two of the plan began in 1995 with the opening of three satellite warehouse and sales offices. Locations now include:
New Products Meet Distributors' Needs
In its continued quest to improve service and be distributors' most reliable source of supply, Bearings Limited complemented its offering of bearings with chain, sprockets, hubs and bushings. Investments in and partnerships with high quality Chinese factories utilizing the latest technologies has resulted in the company's exclusive offering of the TRITAN line of bearings & power transmission products.
Bearings Limited Today - Quality + Service = Value
Now managed by the third generation of its founding family, Bearings Limited still maintains the same values and focus on service as when the company began over 70 years ago. What has changed is its depth. A new, 140,000 square foot building outside New York City now serves as the company's worldwide headquarters, anchoring its six distribution centers nationwide. Bearings Limited is proud to serve over 3500 distributors throughout North America, always striving for new and better ways to meet their needs.
