The shift in priorities was evident at the National Hardware Show in Chicago, where exhibitors unveiled impressive improvements on their gas grills, a category previously thought to be nearing maturity with only limited opportunities for fresh features. Charcoal grill producers, on the other hand, mostly showed lines unchanged from the 1986 season, and many buyers noticed a distinct lack of marketing enthusiasm for the products."It's a matter of priorities for manufacturers,' says Rob Johnson, director of marketing at Sunbeam, which will present the same 14 charcoal SKUs in 1987 that were available last season. Meantime, the company has added six new gas SKUs, to bring its total to 21 next season. "Do we sink our money into charcoal, which is a flat and even declining market?' asks Johnson, "or do we put it into gas, which is still growing nicely. The answer should be obvious.
It certainly seemed so at the hardware show, where visitors heaped praise on a sleek new gas grill line from Nordic Ware with self-cleaning capability, a flare-up control system from W.C. Bradley and the addition of a lower-priced unit to Weber's year-old Genesis collection. For gas grills in 1987, carts are being beefed up and made easier to assemble, while their styling is taking on a more contemporary look that coincides with a burgeoning trend in favor of high-fashion patio furniture.
Such advances, gas grill makers hope, will ensure the continued prosperity of the category. Some 3.2 million gas grills worth $293 million at wholesale were sold in 1985, up 18 percent on a unit basis from the year before. Preliminary estimates put unit sales gains at closer to 10 or 12 percent in 1986. Meanwhile, charcoal grills continue a downward sales pattern. In 1985, 10.2 million units were shipped, compared to 10.5 million the year before. Most alarming, the average unit selling price at wholesale slipped from $12.87 to $11.47 in the same period.
In 1986, most observers believe, unit sales and dollar totals slipped backward again, though the declines probably weren't so great. One of the industry's biggest names, Crestline, filed for bankruptcy in July, and others, such as Structo, were believed to be deemphasizing their charcoal business in favor of gas grills. W. C. Bradley's Char-Broil brand has dominated gas grill sales for years, but in 1986 the tide turned. Sunbeam took over the lead with 30 percent of the market, followed by Structo at 25 percent, Bradley at about 18 percent, Preway/Arkla at 17 percent and Turco at 10 percent. Sunbeam's introductions for the coming season betray a keen sense of evolving trends. For one, all six new SKUs are priced between $200 and $300 at retail-- higher-end strata that merchants are increasingly stepping shopers. Furthermore, there will be two new units with smoked glass side tables, a first for the industry. "The hottest selling patio furniture right now features smoked glass,' notes Johnson, the marketing director. "More and more homeowners are spending $400, $500 and even more to decorate their patios.
They're fashion conscious, and they don't want a mish-mash of styles even outdoors. The grill has to fit a theme.' Other manufacturers agree, with most stressing contemporary looks for 1987 after exhausting the fashion possibilities of redwood and, last season's driftwood gray. Next year Nordic will offer a brushed-chrome finish on four new SKUs that seems positively high-tech, while Structo has instilled upscale, clean lines on its enlarged Thermos line. "Black is becoming a thing of the past as we offer more browns and two-tones,' says Steven Carletti, Structo's director of marketing. "Aesthetics are very important now. People want more than just a little black box in their back yards.'> Nordic Ware, heretofore a small producer with only a few years experience in gas grills, certainly endorses that view. A year ago the company hired Charmglow executive William Marcil to run its barbecue division, and Marcil promptly brought along Charmglow's chief engineer, Dale Garrison.
The two were instrumental in bringing a flurry of features to Nordic's 1987 line: self-cleaning to two top-end models; directional grill louvres for even heat distribution; a so-called Posilite ignition with increased sparking capability; and mahogany side shelves. "The self-clean feature adds about $40 to the cost of our grills at wholesale, $60 at retail,' explains Marcil, who will offer it on $299 and $359 models. "People want a clean grill for cooking, and retailers are going to find these are easy to sell.' Actually, UNR Home Products has had a self-clean feature on its Happy Cooker line for several years, but the units have attracted little attention, mostly because they're round-shaped. As Weber, which discontinued its last kettleshaped gas grill, and other manufacturers have discovered by now, consumers have shown little inclination to buy round gas grills, preferring square shapes instead. UNR has cut back its gas grill line from eight SKUs to two.
Other makers are scrambling to fill the void. Sister companies Turco and Charmglow are pushing their electronic ignition systems on medium- and high-end models, while Charmglow has added more crisply-defined rosewood carts to its 24-SKU line. "The electronic feature means instant ignition, just like with a gas range,' points out Peter Greb, Charmglow's vice president of marketing.' Bradley hopes to revive its fortunes with the new Flare-Fighter Control System, which claims to solve the flare-up dilemma by employing dual grids and honey-combed ceramics that vaporize cooking juices. Weber has its own system which replaces conventional lava rock and pumice with pyramid-shaped bars of porcelainized steel under the cooking grid. Bradley and most other companies have moved quickly to overcome an objection raised in a test conducted by Consumer Reports last June that concluded some gas grills take four hours and longer to assemble. Bradley has cut back the number of bolts from 152 to 30 in two years, and has made its side shelves collapsible to save on storage space.
Temtex now advertises its grills as semi-assembled, and assumes they can be set up in as little as an hour. Of course, such features as windows, warming racks, porcelainized grids and heat indicators are familiar by now to most shoppers who have been surprised to find a healthy selection of extras crammed into even lower price points. Carts are available at a $99 price point, with the once-popular pedestals surviving at an opening $79 and virtually no place else. "The public has told manufacturers they don't want the post style anymore,' says Phillip Long, a sales manager at Turco, which has a single pedestal remaining in its 18-SKU line. Aggressive featurization at the low and medium end has complicated the trade's step-up efforts, but those efforts are succeeding anyway. Overall, prices in gas have been stable for at least three years, with most manufacturers holding the line for 1987 or pushing through marginal increases. Grills priced at $100 or less, which comprise 13 percent of the market according to one study, hold little potential for profit.
Consequently, marketing efforts are stressing such benefits as larger cooking surfaces and stainless steel burners. In 1986, it's believed, 50 percent of all gas grill sales came between $150 and $250, and that upper-middle share of volume is growing. "Close to one-fourth of all gas grill sales now are for replacement,' says Robert Scribner, director of sales and marketing at Temtex. "People who bought basic $89 models a few years ago are moving up to much better units for their second purchase. They're sophisticated, and they understand features. You're beginning to see the typical home center stack out a grill or two above $300 new, and you'll see them and other retailers become even more daring at the high end next season.' That is optimistic for Weber, which went out on a limb when it introduced its three-SKU Genesis line a year ago at hefty price points of $400 and more. The company reports that it met all of its sales targets in 1986, and has added a downsized model, the Genesis XX, to the line at $299 retail. "Another price point will obviously widen our market base,' observes Stan Gudas, Weber's national sales manager. "Our other Genesis grills are almost five feet long, and we found that we were losing sales because consumers thought they were too big for their patios. The quality on the new model is the same.'
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