ST. GEORGE — Lovesac, the home furnishing brand known for its ‘Sactionals – The World’s Most Adaptable Couch,’ has transferred its world headquarters to St. George.
The innovative company recently opened its newest showroom at The Foundry, an office park featuring designers and other home store offices.
“It’s a really special location. It’s more of a design district,” Shawn Nelson, founder and CEO, said. “Most of our stores are in a mall. This is the first of its kind, sort of a little design district. It’s frequented more by home designers and interior designers. Then to have the benefit of our product development team upstairs in these offices, where they can pop down and see customer interactions and hear what people are saying about the product or test things out, is a really cool outcome.”
Shoppers can experience cloud-like comfort sitting on the Sacs, which the company website states are called “The World’s Most Comfortable Seat.” The Sactionals offer upholstered seating that is customizable, washable, changeable, reconfigurable and ample.
‘Designed for Life’ is Nelson’s philosophy, which he said emphasizes sustainable products built to last a lifetime. Lovesac is designed to evolve with the customer’s needs, providing long-term usability and reducing the amount of furniture discarded into landfills.
Sactionals are strong enough to withstand the test of time, which reduces the amount of furniture waste being added to landfills each year, Nelson said. The company also repurposes 600 water bottles to create the base upholstery fabric of each configuration, further upholding their environmentally friendly design. This year alone, Lovesac will repurpose more than 35 million plastic water bottles.
Lovesac originated in Salt Lake City with their flagship foam-filled product in 1998. Nelson was attending the University of Utah at the time and making some Lovesacs as a side hustle through college. David Underwood, the current vice president of product development, was helping him deliver the chairs in vans.
In 2001, Lovesac got a big order from a retailer wanting 12,000 of the Sacs for Christmas, not knowing it was a two-man operation. The company moved operations to Connecticut in 2007. Ten years later, Nelson moved to St. George to be closer to family, and he and Underwood opened the new showroom at the end of October.
“We’re proud of the business model we’ve built,” Nelson said. “We’re excited to be in St. George. It’s a beautiful place. I think it’s a place where lots of people would love to live if they had could find a company like Lovesac to work for.”
In addition to hiring locals, the firm has imported people from Minnesota, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and California.
The new showroom also features the newest Lovesac invention: the Sactional StealthTech Sound + Charge System. It puts the home theater audio components inside a sofa. The system, which has been in the works for six years, was developed as part of a partnership with the home and car audio equipment company Harman Kardon.
Underwood called it “immersive, top-shelf audio.”
“It includes 5.1 Surround Sound, as well as wireless charging capabilities for mobile devices,” Underwood said. “And its embedded technology in our into our Sactionals; it’s all completely hidden. You can’t see it.”
The company has come a long way from when Nelson made that first Sac while living in his parents’ basement. After many ups and downs, the company’s worth is more than $1 billion dollars on the Nasdaq.
Lovesac, located at 904 W. 1600 South, Suite 102, is now open for appointments or walk-ins.
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