On the patio: new styles, colors in wrought iron and resin - outdoor furniture - Hardware Show

Discount Store News, August 5, 1996 by Richard Halverson

Manufacturers are touting jade as the next fashion color in green, as well as sienna, a rust hue.

Indicative of Bradlees' approach: The chain got Plantation Patterns to affix a custom rose stamp on a $299 wrought iron set, with four chairs and a 48-in. round table, so that it wouldn't resemble everyone else's set, Oberholzer said.

It sold through very cleanly, he said, and Bradlees will probably run across next season with one set.

An aluminum sling chair set from JRA, Taiwan, also sold at $349, he said. The set featured a trade-up textured finish in a sand color.

Sling chairs are now being designed for the mass market, Oberholzer said, and sales showed that consumers don't require cushioned chairs. "We could have sold 30% more, if we had it," he said. Next year, Bradlees will carry two sling sets.

The best-selling set at Bradlees was the Casa Blanca resin set from Syroco at $499.99, a traditional cushion chair set with a 40-in. by 72-in. table with a textured green finish.

Bradlees learned from experience that wood is trending down and has no plans for it, he said.

Furthermore, the chain plans to cut back considerably on its resin offerings because two sets at opening price points sold through poorly. It offered a jade green set at $199 and a white set at $249.

Bradlees customers, however, "seem to want sets that are a little more innovative," Oberholzer said. "They don't want just basic sets they can buy anywhere."

Bradlees is a destination store for patio, he said, and the chain will work hard to trade up by offering more quality and better value.

But basic resin sets from Syroco are the bread and butter for GrandPa's, St. Louis. Most of the action was at $149 or less, said lawn & garden buyer Scott Hickcox, with $99 the most popular price point.

GrandPa's, which just opened its 14th store, carried some sets with six high-back chairs and a 60-in. glass top table at $199, but did little volume, he said.

A typical set, priced at $99, was a 42-in. glass top table and four high-back chairs, Hickox said. It came in three colors: sage green, white and hunter green.

At the Hardware Show, Hickox will be looking for another glass-top set that he can retail for $99, but concedes it "will be a tough get." A more realistic price will be $119 to $129 for a glass-top table set.

The glass-top legitimizes the resin category, Hickox said, removing customer skepticism about resin, along with any reluctance to buy.

GrandPa's is "cleaning up pretty well," Hickcox said, after wet and cold spring weather led to a slow start for the season.

At the Hardware Show, buyers will get to chose from a variety of products with new design features:

* Syroco will offer six new monobloc chairs with cane-design backs and tropical palm relief; two new sets featuring oversized chairs for large people; two-seat gliders in aluminum for the mass market; and eight new collections in aluminum that feature garden designs on cushion and sling chairs.

* Grosfillex will present resin table sets in the $100-to-$199 retail range with film designs bonded onto tabletops during the molding process, a European fashion touch previously seen only on high-end table sets. It predicts a continued decline in white to less than 50% of the resin market, with sandstone, granite, burgundy and blue gaining in popularity.