Bean bags Bring a Bit of Fun to Furniture
Have you ever considered how strange it is that, when so many elements of modern living have become casual, that furniture continues to follow pretty much the same rigid shapes and lines as it did 20 years ago. Whilst clothing, crockery and even garden furniture have become increasingly relaxed, we are still presented with chairs and sofas in shops and on TV that bear a remarkable resemblence to the 3 piece suites that we used to buy decades ago. What really surprises me is that, with all the space that the big box furniture retailers have got, the most relaxed of furniture types, the bean bag, has not established a firm foothold.
It looks suspiciously as if those big box retailers have spent so much time on the edge of town that they have missed out on key changes in how people buy furniture. I have to draw that conclusion simply because there are so many websites out there with big beanbag ranges. One of the biggest is Beanbagbazaar and a quick look at the extent and quality of their range leaves one in no doubt that bean bags are big news in furniture.
The reason for this steady resurgence in beanbag sales seems to be that it is a product that people find it easy to live with. For a start, bean bags are really easy to move around a room or from room to room and they are a relatively cheap way of increasing the amount of seating you have at home. But there is more to it than that. The way that bean bags can be reshaped, thrown around and rolled over makes them a uniquely fun piece of furniture. In addition, a lot of contemporary bean bags are suitable for use in the garden as well as indoors, which just emphasises their credentials as a multi use seating product.
The flexibility of bean bags has also led to manufacturers and retailers stretching the boundaries of what they call bean filled products. Apparently, beanbag footstools are now popular, as are ridiculously large bean bags that can seat 2 people or even be used as a daybed. How posh. One other thing that caught my eye on a number of websites, but seemed to be based on a beanbagbazaar idea, was bean bags that can be used indoors or outdoors. That really seemed to epitomise the informal nature of bean bags against more traditional furniture.
My overriding impression of the bean bags market is of suppliers that are enjoying making essentially fun products for consumers that appreciate them and keep coming back for more. I would certainly prefer to design bean bags than chairs.
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