“Simply home. Simply refined.” SunVilla’s tagline actually reveals quite a bit about the company’s approach to the specialty channel in the casual furniture business.

“Simply refined” might be interpreted as describing the company’s approach to design. The company’s products fall into that broad, middle, transitional category.

The furniture isn’t ornate and traditional, nor is it anywhere near avant-garde. Lines are generally clean. Scale is moderate. “Simply refined” seems an apt description.

But the tagline also applies to SunVilla’s somewhat contrarian business model. While many casual furniture companies in the specialty channel strive to offer consumers an ever-expanding array of frame colors, finishes and fabrics, SunVilla has purposefully pared back.

Most SunVilla collections are available in only a single frame color. Resin wicker products likely have one weave executed in one color. Sunbrella cushion fabrics typically are limited to two, three, or four choices.

There’s no need for fabric swatch books; special orders aren’t an option.

It’s a different approach to the casual business and about 180 degrees from what National Sales manager Christy Peterson knew from her time at Woodard Furniture.

Christy Peterson, National Sales manager, sitting on Laurel sling from SunVilla. Photo taken at Woodstock Furniture Outlet in Acworth, Georgia. Photo: ©2017 Stanley Leary, All Rights Reserved.

“Gosh!” she says. “We had tons of collections with 30 different frame finish and weave options. Does it really need to be that complicated?”

Chad Scheinerman, CEO of Today’s Patio stores in Arizona and California, says SunVilla’s strategy works. Choices may be limited, but those available have been smartly chosen to have broad consumer appeal.

Scheinerman calls it a variation on the 80/20 Rule, which says 80% of sales will come from 20% of available products. SunVilla, he says, simply doesn’t offer products that aren’t likely to sell in volume.

And there’s this: “They bring a tremendous perceived value to the floor,” he says.

Quality and comfort are “superior to a lot of other brands” while prices often create a competitive advantage. The brand can “retail a club chair for $399 or $499, but it looks like it’s $599.”

SunVilla made its debut in temporary exhibition space at 2014’s Casual Market Chicago. A year later it moved into a permanent showroom at the Merchandise Mart.

Veneto dining collection.

Scheinerman says he didn’t hesitate to sign on as a retailer with the newcomer for two reasons: The quality of the initial products impressed him, and he had prior experience with the company’s top U.S. executive.

Matt Weiss, SunVilla’s senior vice president, served as Woodard Furniture’s senior vice president of Sales and Marketing when the brand was owned by Craftmade International.

Peterson worked for Weiss at Woodard and says she jumped at the chance to work with him again at SunVilla. She is based in Atlanta.

Weiss gets the credit, she says, for developing SunVilla’s strategy of refined choices.

SunVilla’s website lists 11 furniture collections. The majority feature extruded aluminum frames. Resin wicker panels accent several collections.

Only one collection features a frame wrapped in resin wicker. There’s a smattering of sling. There’s also a steel collection featuring several sub-categories named for European cities. Various pieces in the Euro collection fold or stack.

The company makes a line of fire pits (round and rectangular) as well as a variety of tables.

SunVilla marks the expansion of the Chinese company Yotrio Group Co. into the North American specialty merchant channel. The Chinese firm’s U.S. subsidiary is Yotrio Corp., based in City of Industry, California.

According to the company’s website, Yotrio has been building casual furniture for mass merchants for more than a decade. Customers named include Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Target. Yotrio is publicly traded in China, but the family that started the company in the early 1990s holds most of the stock. Outdoor umbrellas were among its first products.

Today the company claims an annual volume of about US$500 million and employs more than 10,000 people. Yotrio has seven production facilities in China encompassing about 10 million sq. ft.

The company website says Yotrio has more than 350 engineers and designers who produce 6,000 sample products a month.

SunVilla does have dedicated U.S-based designers. One is Mike Farrell, whom Peterson says has worked with Brown Jordan and Agio.

The other is Wright Curry. Curry previously was with Summer Classics and lived in China for a time. “He has a great understanding of design and manufacturing,” Peterson says. “He also has a great understanding of the retail market.”

Yotrio’s European outdoor furniture holdings include Royal Garden, based in Denmark, and MWH, a German brand of casual furniture.

SunVilla offers North American retailers a container program and serves smaller purchases from distribution centers in California, Texas, and Georgia.

Veneto deep seating collection.

The company’s goal, Peterson says, is to provide transitional designs at mid-range price points. Scheinerman, at Today’s Patio, says the company’s products hit that target.

“You can do sling sets for $999 and deep seating for $1,999 or $2,499,” he says. “Those are the sweet spots.”

SunVilla began the year with about 60 specialty retailers, Peterson says. She expects that number to be close to 100 before the year closes out.

SunVilla makes the Paula Deen Outdoor collection, which is marketed by Universal Furniture. Specialty retailers interested in the Paula Deen Outdoor line must go through a Universal sales representative, Peterson said.

The perceived value of SunVilla’s products is matched by exceptional customer service, according to Scheinerman.

When there was a problem with cushions in one of his initial orders, he says SunVilla sent replacement foam by airfreight from China. That was followed by a crew from California who came to Arizona to re-stuff the cushion covers and repack everything.

“Never in all my years have I been serviced like that,” Scheinerman says. “They stand behind their product.”

SunVilla is Today’s Patio’s “fastest- growing line,” he says. “And it continues to grow. I take in multiple containers every month.”