For Berlin Gardens — as for a majority of manufacturers in the outdoor industry — 2022 was a stellar year.
However, Sales Manager Johnny Mullet says it was a bit of an anomaly because demand was so high, which mirrored what the company saw in 2021.
“We went into the 2021 season with extended lead times, like most everybody else in the industry, but towards the middle of the season, things started to feel like they were going back to normal,” Mullet explains. “By the time we got to November or December of last season, sales were pretty much back to pre-pandemic normalcy.”
However, even with a slower December, he says the company saw significant overall growth — doubling its volume — which was almost the same that they would have seen from 2021.
So what does that mean for 2023?
“I tell our dealers that prior to the pandemic, you could predict pretty closely what the outdoor industry was going to do year over year, but with the pandemic, it was so hard to predict,” he says. “So we’re a little skeptical about really putting some solid predictions out there. But the way it looks now, we will likely go back to 2019 sales numbers, and we’re going back to doing some of the things that we did pre-pandemic, like looking at inventory and stocking programs for our dealers. There are signs that we’re going into a year where things could definitely be a little flatter than they were the last two years.”
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Mullet explains that he feels the industry needs to have a little bit of a reset because the last two years were a bit unrealistic.
Mullet says the last two years retailers were so buried that they couldn’t get their hands on anything, so now they’re cautiously optimistic about 2023.
“Some of our dealers have had 50% growth for two years, and we have to ask them if they’ve ever had that significant growth before 2021 and 2022, and nobody has an answer for that,” he says. “But one of the things they did not have a lot of the last two years was inventory, and now we’re able to make enough product to provide the dealers who were able to order enough inventory so that they’re prepared going into the season. And they do feel like that’s part of going back to normal.”
Berlin Gardens also made some changes in its dealer base to cope with the increased demand. Mullet says the company doubled down on its commitment to its current customers and stopped setting up new accounts so it could consistently service the customers it already has.
“We didn’t set up new accounts for two years straight,” he says. “When we had extended lead times, we thought we might now be focusing on providing enough product to our current customer base. And along with that, behind the scenes, we worked hard at scaling our business to try to provide for the increased demand in the last few years. We were able to do that, and we felt like we were in a bit of a bubble.”
The company also expanded its workforce quite a bit in the last two years, which was hard for many businesses across the country.
“Our capacity to make furniture has far exceeded what it was going into the pandemic two years ago,” he says. “So we put ourselves in a position where we can move forward, and we’re able to take care of any kind of increased demand.”
Like many others in the industry, Berlin Gardens did not come out with any new products over the last two years. However, Mullet says that’s going to change going into the 2024 season as the company prepares to show at the Atlanta market.
The company’s full showroom is open for the January market, and Mullet says the company is going all out for the show.
“We’re excited to be in Atlanta and to bring new products to customers old and new at the market,” he says.
