As they enter their fourth year in the market, the brother and sister team behind a South Jersey beach chair company are looking to increase the brand’s retail footprint and grow revenue to a projected $1.3 million, a more than 60% increase over 2022.
LowTides Ocean Products started in 2018 and entered the market in 2020 and in the years since has steadily increased revenue and product offerings. In its first year, the company – helmed by Brenton Hutchinson and Elizabeth Ackmann – saw revenue of about $100,000, a figure it quadrupled to $400,000 in 2021. In 2022, they hit $800,000.
With its customer base established, the Cherry Hill company is looking to expand retail partnerships, increase its footprint across the East Coast and grow product offerings so that it one day becomes more akin to a lifestyle brand.
LowTides Ocean Products began with its popular beach chair which today comes in three styles, two for adults and one for children. It is known for its artist-inspired prints and features like a headrest, rear pouch, cupholders, backpack strap, phone slot, bottle opener and underarm bag hook. The chairs are also made from recycled plastic salvaged from the ocean, with each containing 2 to 3 pounds.
That’s especially significant considering the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, estimates that 80% of all marine pollution is plastic and that some 8 to 10 million metric tons end up in oceans each year.
Ocean plastic is how the idea for LowTides began in the first place. It first occurred to Hutchinson over Memorial Day weekend in 2018. While in Sea Isle City with his family – they grew up in Haddonfield and have long had a home at the Jersey Shore – he picked up a copy of the now iconic National Geographic issue that featured a plastic bag in the shape of an iceberg on the cover.
Armed with new data, the problem niggled at him all weekend.
“I had an idea of the issue with plastic in our environment, but I didn't really have that great of an understanding of the impact,” he recalled.
Hutchinson had also been exploring e-commerce businesses and wanted to find a way to marry that with sustainably.
Seeing people lounging in their beach chairs that weekend struck him. Could he use plastic from the ocean to make better beach chairs? He saw an untapped market where he could make an impact on the planet and grow a successful business by making chairs that resonated more with individual personalities.
“There's been zero development of the beach chair over the last 40 years,” he said, deciding to change that.
Hutchinson proposed the idea to his family, and Ackmann’s husband, an engineer, began working on the idea with him that summer.
Hutchinson spent the next year sourcing recycled plastic and working with an engineer on the design. When he decided to launch a Kickstarter to raise brand awareness and secure pre-orders, Ackmann began working with him.
Both graduates of Camden Catholic High School, their careers took different paths. Hutchinson studied at St. Joseph’s University before going into commercial real estate. Today he is the president of Nightingale Properties, a New York-headquartered commercial real estate investment firm. Ackmann studied marketing, Spanish and international business at the University of Delaware, after which she joined the Peace Corps where she worked with artisans in Peru on marketing and selling their goods. Later, she went on to work at Elizabeth, New Jersey-headquartered food importer Atalanta Corp. in marketing and business development for over a decade.
Around the time Hutchinson was launching the Kickstarter, Ackmann was considering starting her own marketing firm and soon came on board at LowTides as co-founder and chief operating officer.
Their varied backgrounds turned out to be a perfect fit for business. “It ended up being serendipitous…,” Ackmann said.
In June 2019, they launched a one-month Kickstarter campaign, which raised $30,288 from 172 backers. The following year, they brought LowTides, which has been otherwise self-funded, to market and have introduced new lines, known as seasons, each year since.
At the time, it was strictly an e-commerce business, as they’d envisioned it from the start. “To me, that path made sense,” Hutchinson said, particularly given the state of retail in the immediate aftermath of Covid-19. But it wasn’t long before retailers began reaching out. Paired with the high shipping costs to get the chair to a consumer, retail seemed appealing.
They launched retail in 2021 with a focus on stores in and around beach towns. Retail now makes up about 30% of business. LowTides can be found in a number of shops at the Jersey Shore like Brave New World Surf in Point Pleasant Beach, Sands Department Store in Sea Isle City, Shore and More General Store in Seaside Park, and Swain’s Hardware in Cape May. Retail has become so popular that they are doubling their footprint each year and in time they hope for it to be at least half of business if not the majority.
LowTides largely uses a pre-order business model for new items and its latest line is expected to start shipping later this month and through Memorial Day. In total, they will have 37 different chair options, plus three new towel options.
The goal of the chairs is to sell them with patterns that resonate with an individual’s personality. For example, this year’s patterns include designs featuring sealife like flamingos, turtles an octopus, and a seahorse.
They’ve partnered with a number of artists to license their designs, including South Carolina-based Evelyn Henson, contemporary artist Thomas Paul, and Massachusetts-based Molly Hatch. They also have a licensing partnership with global brand Laura Ashley.
By partnering with artists from different regions and with their own followings, they hope they can tap into new markets.
They’re eyeing future partnerships with apparel brand Fair Harbor. Ackmann would also like to do something with Mattel’s Barbie, which comes in a version made of recycled plastic. “I think that putting Barbie on there would really solidify how tangible their mission is and ours is and how it's really coming to fruition that these products can be made sustainably and can be sold and they can be stylish, too,” she said.
Presently sales are concentrated on the East Coast with particularly popular pockets at the Jersey Shore and in the tri-state area, as well as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and the Carolinas. They’re hoping to grow sales in other regions like Florida and eventually spread west to spots like California. LowTides has warehouses in Pennsylvania and Georgia, giving it easy access to the East Coast, but less so elsewhere. A West Coast warehouse is a goal in the near future.
LowTides’ beach chairs make up a vast majority of business – 90% in total, with roughly 40% coming from the Dune High Chair, 35% from the Sandbar Low Chair and 15% from the Gully Child Beach Chair. The Dune High Chair retails for about $160 to $170, while the Sandbar Low Chair is $140 to $150. A child’s chair costs about $90.
Hutchinson and Ackmann are hoping to expand their other segments of business, too. About 10% comes from apparel and accessories, like the Beachpac, which can be attached to the chair, towels, a blanket, and a selection of tops. They also use recycled materials.
So far, LowTides products have been responsible for pulling 28,000 pounds of plastic from the ocean.
Like the movement to reuse plastic found in the oceans, LowTides’ goal is for the beach chair to be just the start in a line of stylish and sustainable lifestyle products. “[It’s] just the tip of the iceberg,” Ackmann said.
