Why playing outdoors is important

Why playing outdoors is important for children

Playing outdoors is not a luxury. It is a fundamental requirement for healthy child development. Research by the World Health Organisation and Dutch research institutes shows that children who engage in at least one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day are healthier in virtually all measurable respects than their peers who mainly stay indoors. The figures on screen time and lack of physical activity in the Netherlands confirm just how important this issue is: the percentage of children meeting the physical activity guidelines has been falling for years. The call for more outdoor play is therefore coming from all quarters: GPs, educational institutions, government campaigns and sports associations. This is the background story that your end customers are presented with, and it helps to shape their purchasing behaviour.

Physical benefits
Climbing, swinging, sliding and scrambling help develop gross motor skills and coordination. Balance, muscle strength and fitness develop much more naturally through these movements than indoors on a mat in the living room. In addition, children who play outdoors get more daylight, which is essential for the production of vitamin D, a healthy sleep-wake cycle and overall immunity. Paediatricians are increasingly pointing out that a significant proportion of Dutch children have a vitamin D deficiency. A play set in your own garden helps to make that daily exposure to the fresh air and sunlight a natural part of life.

Mental and cognitive benefits
Teachers have observed that children who spend enough time playing outdoors are better able to concentrate. Playing outdoors acts as a natural stress regulator: it lowers cortisol levels, reduces restless behaviour and helps children to study and play more focusedly indoors. For children with concentration problems or restless behaviour, playing outdoors is often the most effective tool parents have for establishing a daily routine. At the same time, children who play outdoors sufficiently have been shown to sleep more deeply, with all the associated benefits for the next school day.

Social benefits
In the garden, children learn to set rules, talk through conflicts and come up with solutions together. A play structure forms the centrepiece of sleepovers, birthday parties and spontaneous get-togethers with friends. That social aspect is often the deciding factor when buying: parents want to design their garden so that their children can enjoy themselves at home and so that their friends enjoy coming over to play. A well-designed garden quickly becomes a social hub in the street.

Room for imagination and creativity
A play tower becomes a pirate ship, a playhouse a little shop, a sandpit a bakery. That kind of open-ended play, where children make up their own stories, is difficult to replace with structured indoor activities or screen time. It is precisely this kind of imaginative play that educationalists identify as crucial for social-emotional development.

How your sales staff can use these arguments
The question parents ask in your shop essentially boils down to: am I making a sensible investment if I buy a play structure now? Your sales staff can translate the above benefits into concrete terms for the family they are dealing with. For young parents with toddlers and pre-schoolers, motor skills and a safe play environment are particularly relevant. For parents of school-age children, concentration, social play and providing an alternative to screen time are key factors. If you enable your staff to articulate this, the purchase will seem more logical, justifiable and appealing to the customer. Ultimately, parents aren’t buying a wooden play set, but a healthier and happier childhood.

Reminder: ons buitenspeel-assortiment is breed en compleet

We stock a wide and comprehensive range of outdoor play equipment, so that you can offer the right products for every type of garden, every budget and every age group. Our collection comprises five main categories which, together, cover all the needs of the modern family garden.

Play equipment
Our range of play equipment includes compact play towers for smaller gardens, medium-sized combinations featuring a slide and swing, and large play sets for families with several children and plenty of space. The play towers are designed to be expanded in a modular way. This means you can sell a basic model to customers at the start of their family life and see them return in later years for an add-on swing, an extra slide or a climbing wall. The backbone of this range is our pressure-treated pine, complemented by a premium Douglas fir range (see further on in this blog).

Playhouses
In the playhouses category, you’ll find designs ranging from compact models (suitable for a small garden or as an addition to an existing play area) to spacious playhouses with a veranda that children will enjoy for years to come. Playhouses are the perfect impulse buy for parents looking to finish off their garden before the spring half-term. Cross-selling to a sandpit, a children’s picnic table or wood stain in child-friendly colours is a natural fit here. 

Swings and add-on swings
Our swings are available both as freestanding units and as add-on swings that can be attached to existing play towers. This second segment is commercially important: customers who have purchased a basic play structure in recent years return to expand it as soon as their child gets older or a new sibling arrives. By making add-on swings a permanent feature of your product range, you create a natural opportunity for follow-up sales in the customer relationship. This is one of the most underestimated sources of revenue in this category.

Slides
In the slides category, we stock various lengths and colours, suitable for both DIY installation and attachment to our play towers. Slides are relatively affordable, making them an ideal entry-level product for customers who aren’t yet ready for a full play tower. The same principle applies here: customers who start with a single slide often return later to purchase a climbing wall or a complete play tower.

Sandpits
Sandpits are a staple of any family garden with young children. We stock several sizes and designs, with covers as a natural cross-sell (these protect the sand and extend the sandpit’s lifespan). Sandpits are pre-season products par excellence, making them fast-moving items in your shop and online store during April and May. 

Quality, durability and safety
All play equipment is made from durable garden timber, tested for safety and suitable for intensive use. Our impregnation treatment ensures a long lifespan and reduced maintenance requirements: a factor that often tips the balance in discussions with customers about ‘the investment’. Focus your sales pitch on the total cost over several years, not on the initial purchase price. That is where quality timber proves its worth.

The may holidays are approaching: top up your stock now

The peak in consumer demand for playground equipment traditionally begins in the last week of April and continues until after the May holidays. Some retailers generate a significant proportion of their annual turnover in the outdoor play category during these two to three weeks. Those who make the most of this period will benefit; those who are too late will miss the boat and will not be able to carry that turnover over to a later point in the season.

Tips for your showroom and shop layout
During the May holiday period, set up at least one complete play set on the shop floor, preferably in plain view from the entrance. Make the set accessible to touch: parents want to know how sturdy the equipment is, how the wood feels, and how high the swing is hung. Display clear information about prices, dimensions and made-to-measure delivery. Also make the link to your online channel: a QR code leading to the configuration tool (see next chapter) works very well. Customers who discover the product in-store and continue configuring it at home often return with a firm order.

Communication with your existing customer base
Use the weeks leading up to the May holidays to actively reach out to your existing customers via email, social media posts or a newsletter. Focus on the combination of health and convenience: outdoor play is important, and Tuindeco kits are delivered cut to size so the play equipment can be assembled the very same day. Direct customers to your shop or online store for the full range. Make the most of the campaign slogan: ‘The adventure begins outdoors’. An existing customer who bought their first piece of equipment two or three years ago is often now ready to expand their set-up. That reminder will generate more turnover than you might think.

Configuration module on our website: bespoke solutions as a sales tool

One of the most important sales tools we are providing you with this season is our configuration module. On the website, your end customers (and you yourself in the shop, together with the customer) can configure a play structure in just a few minutes that perfectly suits their garden, family situation and budget.

How the configurator works
The user starts with a base frame, the core structure of the play tower. From there, they choose, step by step, which elements to add: a swing (or add-on swing), a slide in their chosen length and colour, and a climbing wall or climbing net. The configurator calculates the price in real time.

Why the module is of interest to you as a dealer
Firstly, the module boosts conversion rates. Customers who can see the cost straight away are quicker to make a final decision. Hesitation is the biggest obstacle to a sale in this category: the device is a significant investment and parents want to make the right choice. The module reduces that hesitation.

Secondly, the module offers you a powerful in-store tool. Place a tablet in your showroom with the module on the home screen. Sit down with the customer and put together a device together. You act as an adviser, not as a salesperson. That is precisely the position in which customers place the largest orders. Experience from fellow dealers shows that in-store configuration demonstrably increases the average order size.

Thirdly, the module facilitates seamless reorders. All components are interchangeable and compatible with our existing equipment. This means that a customer who buys a basic set today can easily return next year for an add-on swing, an extra slide or a sandpit. And that, in turn, generates further revenue for you.