Super Fitness Health BlogWhat Attributes Make One Bean Bag Great and Another, Mediocre?
Bean Bags are an interesting proposition for the online consumer. When you consider that, for most people, a bean bag is a product that they would expect to get at least several years use from and would want to understand its size, fabric quality and comfort, it is perhaps surprising that the majority of sales of beanbags in the UK are via online stores.
Fortunately, there are now several sizeable online specialists like BeanBagBazaar that offer extensive ranges of bean bags. This has left the high street retailers offering either a handful of low cost beanbags as an impulse purchase or taking the design led route and stocking one or two bespoke products at very bespoke prices. Fundamentally, the high street seems to have given up on bean bags when it ought to be the obvious place to buy them.
Unfortunately, even the best presented online store cannot replace the real world shoppers ability to feel and play with a bean bag in order to assess its appropriateness for their needs. Think colour, size, shape and all the other elements required of a piece of furniture that should get plenty of use. So, let us consider some of the more important features that typify well made bean bags.
One of the first elements of good beanbag design is obviously the fabric or textile used and how it has been stitched together. Whilst most bean bags will use a fairly heavyweight fabric, the way in which the panels are stitched together can vary enormously. Regardless of whether you are looking at standard fabrics or faux leather, it is worth looking out for top stitching as a mark of quality. Top stitching is a premium method that creates a more secure seam on a bean bag, but it is also more aesthetically pleasing. Overlocking of the stitching on the interior seaming is an additional means of security that helps to prevent leaking of the filler beans, especially when bean bags are likely to be thrown around.
When they are considering purchasing a beanbag, many consumers are concerned about the filling leaking out the bean bag. To counter this, a number of manufacturers have opted to put liner bags inside the outer fabric and, on the face of it, this looks like a good solution and one that suggests a premium product. However, this allows them to avoid the more expensive topstitch and overlock seams construction method and the liners themselves cause bulges and creases in larger bean bags as they prevent the free flow of the filler beads.
There are two other factors that I would recommend for consideration, although they are specific to the type of beanbag that is being purchased. With the big increase in the use of bean bags as garden furniture, I would now only buy one that is stain resistant and can be wiped clean like the kids Baz Bag. This means that you can use them indoors as well. The second piece of advice relates to products for infants, where you should look for Azo free dyes, used by products like the Bambeano.
At the risk of being obvious, the fact that the internet is now the logical place to buy a beanbag does create issues for the consumer, given that we are talking about products that you would normally want to handle. In order to minimise the risks of getting it wrong, concentrate on websites that combine good customer reviews, an obvious returns and refunds policy, good quality images and, above all, clearly communicated features for each product.
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