Navigating Seasonal Demand: Strategies for Stocking and Selling Garden Furniture

by Henry Stephens June 26, 2025

The garden furniture industry is a dynamic sector influenced heavily by the changing seasons. While spring and summer drive peak consumer interest, autumn and winter often see a slowdown in sales. Understanding how to navigate this seasonal ebb and flow is critical for businesses that want to maximise profit, optimise inventory, and ensure year-round brand engagement.

In this blog, we’ll explore how to anticipate and manage seasonal demand, implement effective stocking strategies, and boost garden furniture sales throughout the year. Whether you're a retailer, wholesaler, or manufacturer, these insights will help you turn seasonality from a challenge into a competitive advantage.

Understanding the Garden Furniture Buying Cycle

To manage seasonal demand effectively, you must first understand the buying cycle of garden furniture customers.

1. Peak Buying Season (Spring to Early Summer)

From March to July, consumers begin preparing their outdoor spaces. As days grow longer and warmer, interest in garden furniture spikes. People are inspired by new trends, bank holiday sales, and the desire to upgrade their gardens for entertaining.

Key customer drivers during this time:

Garden renovation projects
Outdoor social gatherings
Seasonal promotions (Easter, May bank holidays)
Social media inspiration (Pinterest, Instagram)

Amazonas, the eco-conscious hammock brand based in Germany, sees a surge in sales during this time, especially in products like weatherproof garden hammocks and stand sets. Their colourful, space-saving packaging and easy setup make them particularly appealing to customers ready to refresh their outdoor space.

2. Late Season (Mid-Summer to Early Autumn)

Sales often remain strong through August, but start to taper off by September. Customers are still purchasing, but with increasing price sensitivity.

Key strategies here:

Highlight last-chance summer deals
Bundle furniture with covers or accessories
Emphasise durability and all-weather features

Amazonas products perform well here, especially with messaging around long-term value and modularity. Many of their hammocks and stands are compatible with covers, weatherproof accessories, and storage solutions, making them an easy sell even as temperatures begin to cool.

3. Off-Peak Season (Late Autumn and Winter)

From October to February, demand drops sharply. However, this is the perfect time for planning, off-season marketing, and targeting strategic buyers such as landscapers, garden designers, or trade customers preparing for next year.

Data-Driven Demand Forecasting

One of the most powerful tools for managing seasonal fluctuations is data. Instead of relying on instinct or guesswork, use historic sales data, customer trends, and even weather reports to anticipate demand.

What to Track:

Sales history over the last 2–3 years
Website traffic patterns
Keyword search trends
Weather forecasting

How to Use the Data:

Stock popular SKUs earlier if trends show early buying
Delay bulk orders in years with longer winters
Adjust promotions based on browsing vs. buying patterns

Brands like Amazonas benefit from years of sales insights across international markets. For example, they often stagger their hammock promotions by region depending on temperature shifts, offering UK and Northern Europe deals a few weeks earlier than Southern Europe. This type of agile, data-informed approach can significantly increase conversion rates.

Smart Stocking Strategies

Stock management is at the heart of seasonal demand planning. Overstocking ties up cash, while understocking leads to missed opportunities and customer dissatisfaction.

1. Pre-Season Bulk Ordering with Tiered Delivery

Order large quantities early to secure better pricing from suppliers, but schedule delivery in phases to avoid overfilling warehouses.

Amazonas’ wholesale distribution model works well here. Many retailers order stock in December or January with staggered deliveries through to June. This ensures they can scale stock levels without needing vast onsite storage.

2. Inventory Buffer Zones

Create “buffer” stock zones for your best-selling items. For example, if your data shows that wooden egg chairs spike in May, hold 20–30% more stock than your monthly average for that period.

Amazonas offers core bestsellers like the Brasil Hammock Chair and Palau Stand, which remain top performers year after year. Holding a small buffer of these tried-and-true items can prevent costly stockouts during surges in demand.

3. Dropshipping and On-Demand Fulfilment

Partner with manufacturers or distributors that offer dropshipping. This is especially useful for:

Testing new product lines
Serving niche or overseas markets
Reducing warehouse costs in winter

Amazonas supports dropshipping for select partners, allowing them to test the appeal of new hammock styles or colourways without committing to large stock volumes.

4. We Store Models

For B2B customers or bulk buyers, offer a “we store” model where customers purchase stock during your off-season deals, and you store and dispatch on demand throughout spring and summer.

This is an approach used by Amazonas for key UK and European retailers, helping partners maintain flexibility while the brand handles storage and fulfilment in regional hubs.

Diversified Product Ranges

While loungers and dining sets dominate summer sales, consider diversifying your catalogue to flatten seasonal sales curves.

Seasonal Extensions:

Autumn: Fire pits, outdoor lighting, waterproof covers
Winter: Patio heaters, indoor hammocks, conservatory furniture
Spring: Planters, pergolas, garden tools

Amazonas has mastered seasonal versatility with their indoor-to-outdoor product range. Their Relax series includes stands and hammocks suitable for conservatories and living rooms—ideal for gifting in colder months or promoting in winter wellbeing campaigns.

Their warm, soft organic cotton hammocks can even be positioned as part of mental wellness trends during January and February, giving you content and sales opportunities year-round.

Strategic Sales and Promotions

Running well-timed promotions is essential, but doing it intelligently ensures you don’t eat too far into your margins.

1. Pre-Season Sales (Feb–March)

Generate early revenue and lock in buyers before competitors ramp up.

Amazonas frequently releases “new colour drops” in early spring, giving retailers fresh angles to promote to customers without discounting. Limited editions, small-batch runs, and new accessories (like the Swing Chair Cover) can spark excitement and urgency.

2. Mid-Season Bundling (May–June)

When demand is strong, increase average order value by bundling:

Hammocks + stands + storage bags
Dining sets + parasols + table covers

Amazonas encourages upsells with curated sets and matching accessories, often offering a slightly discounted price when all items are purchased together.

3. End-of-Season Clearance (Aug–Sept)

Clear warehouse space and create urgency:

Limited stock messages
Flash sales or 72-hour promos
Exclusive trade deals

Amazonas typically retires certain colourways or models after each season. This creates an opportunity for clearance sales without devaluing the full range, while keeping collections feeling fresh and limited.

Leveraging Marketing to Smooth Seasonality

Marketing shouldn’t go quiet during the off-season. In fact, it’s the perfect time to build brand equity, grow your audience, and prepare for next season’s launch.

Year-Round Marketing Tactics:

Content Marketing: Publish blogs and videos about furniture care, winter protection tips, and next season’s trends.
Email Campaigns: Segment your audience and stay in touch with educational or inspirational emails.
Paid Ads Retargeting: Use data from peak seasons to retarget browsers during quiet periods.
Social Proof: Share customer testimonials and real-life garden setups.

Amazonas' hammock content often ties into wellness, nature connection, and eco-conscious living. This emotional branding keeps them top-of-mind even when customers aren’t actively buying.

Customer Types and Seasonal Behaviour

Understanding how different customer segments behave throughout the year will help tailor your approach:

B2C Retail Shoppers

Driven by emotion, trends, and immediate need
Respond well to sales, bundles, and influencer marketing
Seasonal spikes are pronounced

Amazonas’ vibrant Instagram and TikTok presence helps them reach these buyers in the early planning phases of spring and throughout summer.

B2B Wholesale Buyers

More strategic, often order months in advance
Interested in payment terms, storage options, and supply reliability

Amazonas works with over 60 UK garden centres, using a mix of pre-booking and flexible reordering windows to meet these clients’ needs.

Landscapers and Garden Designers

Purchase on behalf of clients
Appreciate design support, swatches, or custom options

Amazonas’ clean design, portable displays, and wide choice of colours make them a strong fit for this segment, especially in high-end garden projects.

Logistics and Fulfilment Considerations

It’s easy to overlook logistics when planning around seasonality, but this is where many companies lose money.

Key Best Practices:

Forecast shipping volume by month and ensure partners can scale
Plan ahead for port delays or customs issues
Offer “white glove” delivery options
Monitor returns carefully

Amazonas' European warehouse network and UK distribution partners help reduce lead times and absorb shocks caused by port delays or Brexit-related customs issues—especially critical during peak season.

Sustainability and Seasonal Stocking

The garden furniture market is increasingly influenced by eco-conscious customers. Sustainability should play a role in your seasonal planning.

How to Incorporate It:

Offer FSC-certified wood and recycled plastic ranges
Promote durability as an alternative to “throwaway” furniture
Sell modular systems that can be expanded over seasons
Minimise packaging waste

Amazonas is a leader in sustainability, using FSC-certified wood, recycled Brazilian cotton, and minimal plastic packaging across its product line. These values resonate well in both B2B and DTC markets, particularly during slow months when storytelling becomes more important than short-term offers.

Final Thoughts: Turn Seasonality into a Strength

Rather than fighting the seasonal nature of garden furniture sales, smart businesses embrace it. By anticipating demand, refining your stock strategies, and staying active in marketing year-round, you can smooth out revenue, delight your customers, and maximise profits.

Key Takeaways:

Use historic and trend data to predict demand
Optimise stock with tiered delivery and flexible fulfilment
Diversify your range to appeal outside of summer
Align promotions with buying behaviour
Maintain marketing momentum in the off-season
Partner with brands like Amazonas that offer season-proof products, eco-conscious design, and fulfilment support

With the right approach, seasonality becomes a rhythm you can plan around, not a storm to survive.