Outdoor furniture sales up as coronavirus cancels summer vacations, keeping many at home
As Memorial Day approaches, more people are buying outdoor furniture to gear up for summer at home amid COVID-19
After months of staying indoors, Americans are investing in their outdoor spaces.
Furniture retailers have seen a spike in outdoor home items like patio chairs, gardening tools, pool floats and grills with stay-at-home orders still in place in many states due to the coronavirus pandemic and what’s looking like a stagnant summer for travel lovers.
More people are investing in outdoor furniture ahead of summer during the coronavirus pandemic.
Overstock.com saw patio furniture sales increase a whopping 225 percent year over year since April 1. Outdoor recreational items like pool and gardening items saw 360 percent year-over-year growth since April 1. The outdoor recreational item sales outpaced Overstock.com’s top-selling category, office furniture, which saw 270 percent year-over-year growth during the same time period.
LUXE HOME OFFICE OPTIONS DURING CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC EXPAND TO BACKYARDS, LIVING ROOMS
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“The growth we’ve seen this year is larger than we have ever seen before. People are finding that the more time they spend at home, the more time they want to have those things that make it more meaningful and, more beneficial, and a functional and fashionable outdoor space is playing a big part of that,” Ron Hilton, Overstock’s chief sourcing and operations officer, told FOX Business in a statement.
And Bed Bath & Beyond in April had an 85 percent increase in its digital sales growth, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to FOX Business. The retailer's online outdoor furniture and patio business is up approximately 88 percent over the last four weeks.
While Hilton said sales for outdoor furniture items tend to heat up when the weather gets warm, the sales boom has been unusually high with more people sheltering in place as a result of COVID-19. And more people seem to have been shopping around the time the government issued Americans stimulus checks.
CORONAVIRUS QUARANTINE BOOSTS AT-HOME OFFICE FURNITURE SALES
The sales uptick in outdoor furnishings also comes as Americans seem to be filling their idle time with DIY home improvement projects like remodeling rooms, planting their own gardens or repainting. And while a slew of retailers has filed for bankruptcy due to COVID-19-related store closures, the home furniture market is seeing continued growth.
"People are viewing home as the place where they’re going to be and home furnishings are no longer a discretionary purchase," Overstock.com CEO Jonathan Johnson told FOX Business' Liz Claman earlier this month.