It is hard to believe, but the UK market for beanbags is bigger than ever, with current sales exceeding those in the 60s and 70s, when bean bags were supposedly de rigeur in trendy households. The difference today, of course, is that bean bags are now an everyday feature of most households.

Whilst sales are vastly up, the same cannot be said of quality. Unlike many product areas, where todays products are vastly superior to 40 years ago, the average bean bag has not really moved on much. In fact, despite the constant evolution of the soft furnishings market, the average bean bag on sale today in the British High Street is likely be cheap, use lower grades of fabric and be stitched in a manner that does not inspire confidence.

The resurgence in demand for bean bags is not principally a phenomenon of the high street however. It has really come as a result of the emergence of a number of online bean bag companies that offer their products solely via websites. Chief among these is Bean Bag Bazaar who, in little more than five years, have become the most significant player in the UK bean bag market.

What seems to make BeanBagBazaar different to the other companies that have not moved on for decades is their substantial commitment to developing a sustainable UK bean bag business. We suspect that it is unusual for bean bag companies to invest heavily in product development, quality improvements and marketing, but they maintain a UK based design department as well as a marketing operation that focuses on their customers. What became very clear to us is that BeanBagBazaar offers a plethora of products that are made to exacting standards, whether they are bean bags for kids or specialist outdoor bean bags. It is also pretty obvious that a number of other online sellers simply use the shapes and ideas from the website to develop strangely similar products.

The good news is that the growth in bean bag sales is being driven by British design and marketing skills and that the internet has given companies a chance to compete with high street retailers who have become used to buying the same old products at Asian trade fairs.