This report originally appeared in the June 2015 print issue of Casual Living

Nationally, 3.8% of U.S. households purchased an outdoor dining set in 2014, spending $2.1 billion at retail. This year, even more households, 4.0% in total, have an outdoor dining set in their purchasing plans. Translated into actual numbers, 4.7 million households plan to buy a dining set in 2015. Those are the top-line findings from Casual Living's 2015 Consumer Buying Trends Survey. The exclusive data provides nationally representative purchase incidence figures, as well as demographic characteristics of the households that bought in 2014 and plan to buy in 2015. Households living in the West and Midwest portions of the country bought dining sets at higher rates last year than those living in the South or Northeast. In 2015, 4.4% of households living in the Midwest plan to buy a new dining set, as do 4.3% of those living in the West, 4.0% of those in the South and 3.2% of households living in the Northeast. Three out of 10 households shopping for a dining set last year did not make a purchase. These 1.9 million households went away empty handed and form what is called the Buying Gap. Assuming all Buying Gap households would have paid, on average, the same amount as buying households, untapped sales potentially could have added another $900 million to 2014's retail bottom line. In this exclusive report, Casual Living presents detailed information on outdoor dining set shopping and buying plans. The data originates from the responses of 2,500 U.S. households to an online survey conducted in December 2014. Casual Living worked with TNS Custom Research, one of the world's largest insight, information and consultancy groups. U.S. households told Casual Living if they shopped for dining sets in 2014, if they bought, how much they spent and if they plan to buy in 2015. Because of the sample size and a respondent profile closely matching the demographics of all U.S. households, survey data can be projected nationally with a margin of error of plus or minus 2%.

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