Poly lumber furniture is a hard category to conquer because of the competitiveness of the category, the amount of players and the execution of the product.
However, Indiana-based EC Woods is working its way up, and it’s in no small part because of its history as an indoor wood furnishings manufacturer.
The company was founded by Ernie Wingard, who had started by tinkering with wood projects in his shop. He eventually took things a step further and partnered with a friend to launch a line of wooden dining chairs.
Wingard’s son Jeremiah, who was in college at the time, decided to join the business, and in 2001, the family-owned business was officially established. Soon after, Wingard’s son James also came into the company.
Today, Jeremiah is vice president of operations, with James as vice president of manufacturing, and together the father/son trio has grown the company exponentially.
“Over time we added new employees, starting with part-timers, and now we have 27 total employees,” Jeremiah says. “We entered the outdoor category about seven years ago, but in 2020 with Covid, we started focusing on outdoor poly lumber because we saw that there was a big market for it. With us coming from the indoor side of the business, we felt poly furniture would be a nice segue into the outdoor category.”
However, the poly category is crowded with both high-end and low-end product, and it’s not an easy market to break into.
“We put huge stock in customer service and quality, you know, and that goes miles with current or potential dealers.” Jeremiah explains. “Word of mouth has been our best source of business so far. We’ve had to come up with other things that the competition does not have to be able to get our foot in the door.”
Ernie adds that one of things that the company gets excited about is innovation, and the Tacoma modular bar is a strong example. The set can be customized any way the end user wants; it features under-bar lighting and is available in any of the colors EC Woods offers.
Last year, the company created an Adirondack chair that has an adjustable seat, and they say it was a big hit at the summer Casual Market Atlanta. EC Woods patented the mechanism for the chair, which helps lift a person up out of the traditionally low-to-the-ground chair.
“That’s the type of innovation we really enjoy, and many of our leads for new product comes from our customers, which we think is very important,” says Ernie.
Because the company has already established itself and its factories for indoor wood product, it was an easier transition to get into the poly category than it would be for someone starting from scratch. And this allows them to focus on innovation more than some others in the industry.
“It’s a huge leap to get into the poly furniture business, but for us the transition was fairly smooth because the indoor chairs that we make are high end,” Ernie says. We’ve taken those same principles outdoors. The transition into outdoor was a fun one because once you go outdoors you have so much more opportunity for innovation.”
Jeremiah says the company aims to release one unique new product per year, in addition to tried-and-true favorites. The product lineup for 2025 is still in the works, but he says deep seating will be a big focus, as well as several new versions of the Tocoma bar.
“We try to keep everything fresh and up to date, and we’re constantly looking at trends,” Jeremiah says. “We’re going to continue to make modular furniture because we’ve found that customers like to create their own styles.”
