While the interior look and feel of a home may be a bigger priority for some, a yard gives people a chance to craft their ideal outdoor space. Tending to a yard is the perfect way to create a peaceful area where homeowners can enjoy the great outdoors while also displaying a little bit of their personality to the (literal) outside world.
As experts in wholesale plant and flower solutions, our team at K. van Bourgondien has years of experience when it comes to helping businesses and individuals shape and perfect their outdoor spaces. We also know that plant life is not all that goes into the creation of the perfect yard.
For those reasons, we wanted to get a better feel for the kinds of outdoor furniture, accessories, and projects that people are most interested in around the country. To do that we turned to Google Trends to identify the outdoor accessory that homeowners are searching for the most in every state. Once we had that data in hand, we decided to map out and share the results, which you can see below. Read on to see what we found!
To start off our analysis, we looked at Google Trends data from the last 12 months, from the start of July 2019 to the end of June 2020. We collected search volume data for over 50 different outdoor accessories for the home, ranging from flower beds to trampolines to patio chairs and many more items in between.
Once we found the accessory with the highest search volume over the last year, we took those results and mapped out the state-by-state results above. We found that outdoor refrigerators were the most popular accessory in four different states, the highest total of any item in our analysis. Five other items – trampolines, flower beds, grills, planters, and outdoor pillows – were the top searched in three different states.
Using the state-by-state data above, we decided to see if we could glean any additional insights by grouping states together by region. Evaluating things this way showed us that planters and garden chimes are the top-searched accessories in the Midwest, suggesting that this part of the country is most interested in serene and peaceful improvements to their outdoor spaces.
Those in the Northeast are looking to have cold drinks on hand outside, as they searched for outdoor refrigerators the most, while those in the South want to add some beauty and color to their spaces with some new flower beds. The most fun region of the country appears to be the West, however, as they had a two-way tie between trampolines and outdoor fountains!
One thing we noticed as we were collecting this research was that many different accessories we were searching for received major jumps in search interest during the time people were in quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems that people were using the increased time at home to finally get around to those home improvement projects they’ve had their eye on. With that in mind, we decided to collect a secondary batch of Trends data focusing on what items people searched for the most between April and June of 2020.
Once again, we mapped out the results for each state, which can be seen above. The item that was most popular in the greatest number of states over the three-month time frame we examined was the grill, taking the top spot in five different states. Given the risks and regulations that made eating out risky at best during the pandemic, it is no surprise that many people were looking for a way to up their culinary game at home. Sheds and outdoor pools each finished first in four different states, telling us that many people took this time to organize their outdoor spaces or add a new way to get some outdoor fun and exercise at home.
We broke out our state-by-state results into different regions, and those results can be seen in the map above. During the quarantine period we examined, we found that many homeowners in the Midwest decided to combat the closings of parks and public places by adding playsets to their yards, while those in the Northeast were searching for patio umbrellas to shelter them from the sun during these summer months. Down South, grills were most popular, while in the West, four different items tied in terms of search volume – trampolines, sheds, outdoor pools, and fake rocks.
Finally, we took the results for both the last year and the last few months and graphed out how many different items were most popular in multiple states. Interestingly, for both periods of time, there were 12 different items that finished first in multiple states, and the total number of multiples covered 31 different states for each, even though the totals and items are different.
September 2020 Update:
With football season underway and social-distancing restrictions keeping fans out of the stands, we wanted to take a look at the popularity of different items that football fans might add to their outdoor spaces to turn them into the ultimate at-home tailgate destination. Using data from mid-August to mid-September of 2020, we focused on things like hot tubs, outdoor TVs, and, of course, grills.
Facing the prospect of a football season spent at home, it appears that people around the country took this fall as the perfect time to upgrade their outdoor cooking situation. Overall it was grills that proved most popular around the country, taking the top spot in 20 different states and three of the four regions of the country, showing that football fans are still dedicated to the tailgate lifestyle, even if it’s in their backyard instead of the stadium lot!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the most popular outdoor accessories in every state, we sure had fun putting it together! And if this analysis has inspired you to get to work on a project to beautify your own backyard, remember that K. van Bourgondien is here for all your wholesale plant and flower needs.