Reading between the liners: our exclusive survey shows how improved quality and aesthetics have helped boost the sales of vinyl-liner pools - Survey Vinyl Liners

Pool & Spa News, April 25, 2003 by Bob Dumas

If the economy is in a tailspin. Artie Edwards isn't feeling it. His company has scheduled the largest number of spring installations in its history.

The No. 1 factor is the low interest rates, says Edwards, president 9f Arthur Edwards Pool & Spa Center, a vinyl-liner pool dealer in Miller Place, N.Y. "People are putting money back into their homes. They sure aren't putting it in the stock market."

Other vinyl-liner pool builders are enjoying similar boons. But there's more behind the high demand for vinyl-liner pools than low interest rates, say installers across the country.

They say improvements in the product--better quality liners, more gunite-style add-ons and freeform capabilities--are convincing more and more consumers to opt for a package pool. In addition, less-expensive package pools play into the "total backyard" trend: The less consumers spend on their pool, the more they can spend on things such as landscaping and furniture.

Pool & Spa News' exclusive survey of this industry segment backs those contentions up with hard numbers. The survey, conducted by Readex Inc. of Stillwater, Minn., explored issues such as:

* Gross vinyl-liner revenues and revenue increases

* Popularity of vinyl-liner pools

* The quality of vinyl-liner pools

* The significance of liner pattern choices

* Consumer perception

* Consumer behavior

* The impact of the ultimate backyard trend on vinyl-liner pools

* Options and products offered with vinyl-liner pools

The survey confirmed Edwards' feeling that the vinyl-liner industry is robust and healthy: Forty-one percent of the builders surveyed say they have experienced gross revenues of at least $1.5 million. In the second highest response, 20 percent report gross revenues between $500,000 and $999,999.

Approximately 51 percent even say they expect to see their revenue increase in 2003. For those foreseeing a revenue hike, 20 percent predict that the increase will fall between 10 and 19 percent.

Vinyl-liner pool builders say the trend toward a more complete backyard, combined with the improved quality of package pools and their affordability, has help boost sales.

Total backyard budgets

Keeping the total backyard concept in mind, 74 percent of the survey respondents say that consumers are spending between $20,000 to nearly $50,000 on their new pools, including things such as landscaping and waterfeatures.

Of that money, the survey indicates that 76.5 percent is spent on the pool itself, while 17.4 percent goes toward landscaping, including items such as decking.

Those surveyed indicate that the amount of money vinyl-liner pool buyers are spending on landscaping has increased. Fifty-six percent note that "somewhat more is being spent" on landscaping expenditures. Twenty-nine percent say, "Much more is being spent."

"There is a lot more landscaping going on now than there was even three years ago," agrees Art Herendeen, co-owner of Aqua Land, a Freeport, Ill.-based vinyl-liner pool dealer. "Now [consumers] want everything and we have to go to landscaping companies to do a lot of this stuff. But it's good because it gives us time to start on building another pool."

Apparently, homeowners are no longer satisfied with buying just a pool. "Today, they want the entire backyard design," says Ken Bonsall, president of Bonsall Pool & Spa in Lincoln, Neb. "They want the pool with decking, and maybe some boulders and plants and landscape lighting. We are trying to accommodate the customer by providing all that."

Edwards' company has been experiencing the same thing. "A majority [of customers] are looking for the whole design for their backyards to utilize as a family entertainment area," he says. "Storage sheds, barbecues, decks, patios, screening, landscaping--it's a total concept.

"So, we now have a full-time designer on our staff. In the '80s, you wouldn't have even thought about that. Back then, it was strictly building a pool and then handing out business cards."

But this trend toward the total backyard may be providing a boost in package-pool sales, more so than any other kind of pool. The reason, Edwards says, is that if consumers have a specified budget, a package pool means they can spend more money on landscaping and other amenities than they can with a gunite pool.

"If you are dealing with landscaping and people have a tight budget, they would rather put in a vinyl-liner pool so that they have another $10- or $20,000 to spend on the extras," Edwards says. "The pool--the hole in the ground--has become the smallest part of the project."

Bob Rao says his company has experienced the same thing. "Gunite used to be for a very select crowd: the affluent," says Rao, the sales manager at Modern Comfort Pools, in Coram, N.Y. "But a lot more of those people are going vinyl so they can sink more money into the overall design."

In addition, vinyl-liner pools have more options than ever before. For installers offering options, it can be quite profitable.

The top four most popular options currently sold include:

* Automation products: 89 percent