On Jan. 1, Eric Parsons moved from his role as president of Jensen Outdoor to chairman, and industry veteran Bryan Echols has held the president’s position for nearly nine months. Under his leadership, the company continues to thrive, as Echols said it’s on its way to double-digit growth again this year.
As president, Echols has spearheaded a few new initiatives for the company. First, Jensen took two of its most popular collections, Opal and Coral, and created a Ready Reserve program to offer quicker shipping times.
“Another thing that we’re incorporating and we’ll probably launch in September is updating our website,” Echols said. “And in addition to that, we’re going to be launching an order writer that our design customers can use. It’s a visual-based system so we can make sure that they’re ordering exactly what they want. And it ensures they can get more information, because more and more customers are working outside of normal business hours, especially when we’re working with our design clients. This will enable them to work and interact with us at a certain level, 24/7. Our dealers and reps will eventually be able to use it as well.”
Echols said Jensen has been working on this latest investment for the past six to nine months, and that he’s excited to unveil it at the September Casual Market.
Jensen also has continued to enhance its in-house team to get lead times down, and keep them down, during the selling season.
“That’s something that everybody’s having to deal with,” he said. “We had a very significant increase in our special orders this year, and it started earlier and lasted longer than it has in the last several years. So we needed to add more resources in-house to try to accommodate that and make sure that we’re continually keeping up with the growth that we’re experiencing.”
Echols said the company has already added a couple of new people to the in-house team for production on the product side, particularly in cushions. And Jensen also is working on strategies to be ready for next year.
Speaking of next year, Echols said Jensen had a great July Casual Market as retailers were on the hunt for new and interesting outdoor pieces. He said the attendance was down slightly from the prior July, but that this was not unexpected.
“We knew several dealers had situations back in their stores or had people out, so they couldn’t get there,” Echols said. “But we were very happy with the show. And one thing that really played through is that a lot of people were reviewing their floors for the first time in a while. There was a significant number of retailers who told us they were looking at the mix on their floor more than they had in the last couple of years. And a lot of that was because of what we saw play out in the season, which is the movement of higher-end and more unique items, as opposed to the middle-level price points.”
Echols said Jensen is receiving a significant amount of special orders, more than they did last year, and this is because of retailers’ gravitation toward higher-end products.
“Some retailers who hadn’t had us on the floor in a while are putting us back on the floor because they were looking for those more unique-yet-sellable items,” Echols added.
At the July Casual Market, the company unveiled three new collections, Sonnet, Aeris and Umbra.
Umbra is a new barrel-back mixed-media collection that features ipe as well as woven wicker. It has a design flair to it — behind the cushions, the ipe extends up, offering a unique and interesting look from the back of the sofa as well. It will be featured in two woven colors. “One thing that we always look at in our designs is that we realize that so many patios and things like that these days are actually free floating, so you’ve got to pay attention to what the back of things look like as much as the front,” Echols said.
Aeris is an all-aluminum group with a woven back and either ipe or teak arms. Echols said this is an extension of what Jensen is doing for commercial and hospitality, but it plays into retail as well. “People liked the comfort on that group, and how clean the styling is,” Echols said. “It has a very open, airy frame, and all those things speak to the small spaces that consumers are interested in right now. “
Sonnet is a completely teak group designed by John Caldwell. Many customers are looking for products that don’t require cushions, Echols said. This distinct group sits comfortably with the provided 2-inch seat cushion or without it.
“We really tried to strike that balance between making sure it was the right height, whether you had the cushion or not, but still make the cushion comfortable and more than just a pad,” Echols said. “It has a very nice additional padded design on the top, so the top portion of the piece is enhanced, adding a design accent. Otherwise it has a very clean, open porch-type feel, as well as a small footprint. I wouldn’t call it garden furniture, but it fits that aesthetic.”
Echols believes that Casual Market attendance in September will be higher than July.
“This year we’re going to be falling back to the same model that we had before, where the fall market is looking like it’s going to be a little bit more active,” he said. “Whether that’s a trend that continues year to year, I don’t know, because we’ve always had variables whenever we’ve started back. When we came down to Atlanta, there’s been something a little bit different, a little bit of a change, every year. So once we start getting a little bit more consistency, we’ll see if this model is going to stay.”
