Weather Boosts Sales of Hearth and Outdoor Products

Sales of hearth and fireplace products depend greatly upon the weather. That is especially the case over the past few months, as colder weather all over the country has resulted in booming propane product sales for RH Peterson (City of Industry, Calif.).

Tod Corrin, executive vice president for RH Peterson, noted that the company sells hearth and fireplace products, as well as grills, fire pits, and fire tables that run on propane or natural gas. The business sells to distributors all around the country, including major operations such as Ray Murray (Lee, Mass.) and Rutherford Equipment (Covington, Ga.), as well as many smaller distributors. “We have a major distributor in every major metropolitan area,” Corrin said, adding that the company is selling “truckloads” of gas logs to those distributors, and they distribute them to the hearth and propane dealers and online retailers.

Sales were down after the past warm winter, particularly for vent-free products. Corrin noted the market has been flat over the past few years. But in recent months, sales of hearth and fireplace products are up as the weather is colder than normal everywhere. “My daughter is in Wisconsin, and she sent pictures of a car thermometer that showed minus 2,” Corrin noted in early January. “We don’t get minus 2 here in Southern California, but it’s still cold, so there’s a big demand. We get demand everywhere when it’s cold, and it got cold everywhere in the last month.” He added that frigid temperatures also increase demand from Internet retailers. “They buy from the distributors like Rutherford,” Corrin stated. “That creates demand for Rutherford, too.”

RH Peterson sells vented and vent-free gas logs as well as direct-vent fireplace inserts. Since late last year, vented and vent-free gas logs have been selling well. “Vent free, in particular, has been very strong, and that’s weather related,” Corrin said. “When it gets cold, we get orders. It’s amazing, but it happens. You would think people would stock up, but demand just comes through very quickly.”

The company also manufactures and sells patio products such as outdoor fire tables and fire pits under the brands American Outdoor Grill, Fire Magic Grills, and American Fyre Designs, and sales of those products are also heavily dependent on weather. As would be expected, sales of grills and other outdoor products spike when weather warms up in the spring. When people start fixing up their backyards for summer activities, fire pit sales move up. Products from American Fyre Designs include fire tables, fire pits, fireplaces, urns, and various fire pit designs involving fire in the middle of a reinforced concrete surround. RH Peterson sells those mostly for residential back yard use but also to restaurants and other businesses.

Corrin noted that RH Peterson offers programs to encourage its distributors to buy product early and stock it in their warehouses, so that they are ready to handle the demand when it starts. “For instance, right now we have an incentive program, called deferred billing, for grills, so that anyone buying an order of a certain number of grills will get deferred billing. They don’t have to pay for it until July. They get basically six months billing.”

Propane marketers are missing a great opportunity if they don’t sell outdoor and indoor products, Corrin said. In addition to making a profit on the sale of the product itself, they can sell more propane by adding those extra burner tips.

As an example, he mentioned Blossman Gas (Ocean Springs, Miss.), which sells various RH Peterson products at its stores. “They also sell propane appliances in general and they enhance their sales. Plus, they create another burner tip at that residential consumer’s location. Whether it’s a 5-gal. propane tank or a backyard propane system, they create more demand for their product, propane.” — Daryl Lubinsky