Recent consolidation in the casual industry has come in the form of private equity companies buying e-commerce-focused companies, like Blackford acquiring Starfire Direct and Artificial Turf Supply in 2022, LTD Online in 2023 and Empire Distributing in 2024, and Group Bayport acquiring Northcape in late 2024.
Though few and far between, family businesses are still building their empires, whether in the spotlight or behind the scenes.
March Products, parent company to California Umbrella and Gold Crest Cushions, has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to help retailers solve modern-day challenges. Founded by Mark Ma in the 1970s, the company has come a long way with the help of Ma’s son, Abraham, as well as Bryan Sanches, founder of California Umbrella.
Today, Sanches, a senior vice president and partner at March Products, recently took on yet another role as the CEO of Gold Crest Cushions.
March Products acquired Gold Crest — which has been producing cushions for over 40 years — in 2025, when it became apparent that there was big business in selling cushions alongside Umbrellas. March Products primarily does business as California Umbrella, and has another e-commerce-focused brand called Astella.
“We had a good idea of how to bring cushions into the mix, but once we started to look at producing our own, we found it would be better to partner with another company that had been doing it before,” Sanches said. “There came an opportunity to bring Gold Crest into the fold with March Products, so we took the production facility and moved it to Dallas, where we could be in a good supply chain area as well as expand our distribution footprint for all products.”
Gold Crest Cushions was family-owned and operated by Silvia and Jenaro Garcia prior to its acquisition. They operated a well-regarded manufacturing facility out of Pomona, California, and as consumer habits shifted, they started to look for new avenues of business. With the help of March Products, the company has resources previously unavailable to them, leaving room for expansion.
The process moved quickly, as the refreshed company opened its new facility last year on April 1, had its first employees start on April 15 and had its first orders placed on May 15.
Today, the company ships custom orders in six weeks and has done over seven figures in revenue with the new product line since it launched.
This revenue comes from both the company’s retail business as well as its commercial and OEM business. Sanches said that the replacement cushion business is an often-overlooked category, and that means there’s a great opportunity in it for Gold Crest.
“I have a lot of ideas about replacement cushions, and our team is working to create unique looks in the replacement cushion space,” he said.
Sanches built California Umbrella into a powerhouse, all before working with March Products founder Abraham Ma to build the company with new additions to its portfolio. The company excels at shipping products quickly due to its stock programs, which is something Sanches brought to the table with California Umbrella.
He’s hoping to continue that same growth with Gold Crest and breathe new life into the brand.
“Retailers were living with long lead times, but we have helped solve that problem,” Sanches said. “I like to say for an outdoor furniture retailer, every week in the season is like a whole month in sales. When you’re in the middle of the season, and you need inventory, can you wait five months or more?”
