What is the hot tub sweet spot?
Is there a certain size, number of seats or combination of features that is your best seller and/or seems to suit a wide range of customers?
Rob Anderson, Vice President
Olympic Hot Tub
Eight locations across the greater Puget Sound region
By a significant margin, we find the most popular size hot tubs are the 7-foot tubs — those that are approximately 7 feet by 7 feet and 36 inches deep. With six models across three collections, we’re fortunate to have several options in this size to fit the needs of a wide range of customers. These models tend to seat five to seven people and can comfortably fit onto most backyard patios, which, for most customers, means they don’t need to worry about additional hardscaping to accommodate the hot tub.
When it comes to the age-old question of lounge or nonlounge, we see about a 60/40 split between lounge and nonlounge models with more people preferring no lounge. In most cases, it’s about the number of seats, and the nonlounge version comfortably seats more people and generally feels more open and spacious.
Interestingly, when we break this down by pricing tiers, the 7-foot tubs are the most popular relative to other sizes and models in the middle tier, with slightly more even distributions across all models and sizes in the lower tier and a nearly even distribution across all models and sizes at the high end.
While the data clearly shows tubs in this size category are the most popular, I believe it can simply be attributed to customers wanting to get the most hot tub they can afford, and for many families, this size tub maximizes their budget to meet their needs.
Cole Taylor, Owner
Southern Leisure Spas & Patio
Five Texas locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metro, Austin and San Antonio
When it comes to the sweet spot for hot tub size and features, our sales data gives us a good indication of what consumers are looking for.
The most popular hot tub size and layout is a 7-foot-by-7-foot tub with a lounge seat. I believe consumers find this size appealing because it does not overwhelm the average-sized backyard patio while still comfortably accommodating plenty of people. The lounge seat is a popular feature, especially among first-time hot tub buyers. Shoppers visualize themselves kicking back in the lounge seat with a drink nearby as they massage their stress and worries away. In the mind of the buyer, I believe the lounge seat helps solve the problem they are looking to eliminate — stress.
The second sweet spot spa at Southern Leisure is an 8-foot open-bench seating arrangement layout. This type of spa is more popular among families and shoppers looking to accommodate larger groups of people. Second-time buyers tend to opt for a nonlounge, bench-seat layout, perhaps because they found they did not use the lounge in their first spa as much as they anticipated. The 8-foot spa size typically requires more planning to accommodate the larger footprint of the spa. For this reason, sometimes the 8-foot spas require a longer sales cycle to lock in the customer.
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