Casual Living

It's report card time. As I write this, my son is taking end-of-grade tests. By the time you read it, we will have his report card in hand and know how well or poorly he fared in sixth grade.

How do you measure your store's success? Do you know what grades your customers give you — or potential customers' impressions as they drive past or walk away without a purchase?

In the June issue, our latest Consumer Buying Trends Survey provides an industry report card. More than 2,500 homeowners with household incomes of $75,000 or more took the time to tell us what they want. Their answers include how they use their outdoor spaces, why they bought outdoor furniture and where. Some of their responses are enlightening and encouraging. Others answers cause concern.

Nine out of 10 rated quality, durability and comfort as important ...Read More

When I start getting calls from major consumer media like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Reader's Digest, I know spring has finally arrived. Editors at those organizations are paying attention to our relatively small industry and trying to figure out what's behind all the excitement.

They are hearing, as we are, of the increased demand for upscale outdoor living spaces. They are asking what the deep seating talk is all about, what numbers are available to show sales growth over the past decade or how to keep outdoor products clean.

When I talked yesterday to a writer for ...Read More

Maybe it's just the change of seasons as we move toward the promise of warmer days ahead.

Advertisements for performance fabrics entice consumers to move outdoors and make a statement.

You may notice more ads from outdoor furniture, lighting, pool, spa, grill and even drapery manufacturers as you're reading consumer magazines like Architectural Digest this month. Some of the ads include enough elements to help consumers visualize what they can aspire to for their outdoor living rooms, which are the new home decorating frontier. Those ads can be the seeds of inspirations. For example, in years past, my mother used to rip photos and ads out of magazines and keep them in an idea file, which she referred to when my parents built their dream home. One res...Read More

Ice dripped from treetops as I drove toward the office this morning. Although roads were only wet, not ice-slick, yesterday's freezing rain provided another reminder winter isn't finished with us yet.

Associate Editor Courtney Mueller, freshly returned from the unusually cold Dallas Market Center, told me she was impressed by the quality of outdoor living products and displays she saw at the Winter market. Retail buyers didn't have to be reminded of the upcoming change of seasons — it's one change we all can count on.

Other changes all around us are less predictable and longer lasting.

How many of us could have predicted how the growth of imports and the Internet would change retailing in the 21st century? Most of us now ...Read More

How's your balancing act?

Depending on your location, most of you outside of Florida and southern California are finished with the season of selling outdoor furniture and accessories. As you read this, you may be concentrating on selling Christmas trees and other holiday decor. Or maybe you're selling spas as that season starts to churn. Others of you may now be selling hearth products or maybe skis.

No matter what your focus is, don't forget the importance of specialty retailers keeping best-selling casual furniture collections on their floors and in front of customers even after the season ends. Not the "losers," mind you, those lines should be cleared out if they haven't already been to make room for their 2007 replacements.

Want an example of a balancing act that's working? Jerry Stroupe, ...Read More