Conservatory furniture has achieved a bad reputation over recent years for being old fashioned with people only thinking of the high back cane suites, the sort of thing you’d expect your grandmother to have. Many of the old furniture importers did not seem to go far enough with new designs, many copying each others designs and some just re-designing rattan furniture that the older generation would like. However a new wave of fashionable rattan furniture has been a breath of fresh air for the cane furniture specialists because it has been very frustrating not to have a collection that suits everybody.

A questions asked “Rattan garden furniture is expensive why would you want to buy it for indoors?” with a reply from a recent customer “The look, the design, basically I want something modern.”

The frame of rattan garden furniture is generally welded aluminum to be weatherproof, and that is expensive to purchase and time consuming to work with, however the frame of indoor rattan furniture tends to be locally grown hardwood or cane, therefore much cheaper and as rattan is a natural product it is much cheaper to buy than a man made synthetic fiber alternative.

The UK based rattan garden furniture companies are now designing furniture for the discerning modern market. Some employ famous furniture designers to create innovative designs and all at a cost but there is definitely a market that is buying.

Our own experiences in recent months are that most customers are willing to pay up to £4000 to obtain the right look on rattan garden furniture, but only about £1500 on traditional rattan conservatory furniture even if it does have the ‘right look’.

Our feeling is that this ‘old fashioned’ reputation is costing the cane market a lot of money bourne out by the fact that even large companies such as Burdekin are going into liquidation, its possibly another factor in the reasons for the downward turn as well as the general pull back due to the credit crunch.

(more…)