Kids’ newest favorite ‘Nugget’ isn’t edible

How a couch for kids has reached new levels of popularity during the pandemic
Mia Weinand
Coordinator, Media Relations

The year 2020 has been enough to make anyone want to hide in a fort and not come out. For the handful of parents (and kids) lucky enough to get their hands on a Nugget couch, they can.

Based on its popularity and unavailability, one could be forgiven for thinking the Nugget is an expensive designer-brand couch. In reality, it’s foam blocks wrapped in micro suede fabric that can come together as a couch or be pulled apart for fort-building and other playground-esque activities.

Retail trends

Check out other retail trends we're seeing during this unprecedented year here.

When co-founders Hannah Fussell, Ryan Cocca and David Baron came up with the idea after meeting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, none of them could have imagined how much their creation would take off. While the couch has been increasing in popularity for the past few years, when the country shut down due to the pandemic it caused a buying frenzy the company couldn’t keep up with.

During an August restock, over 100,000 people went to Nugget’s website for one of the 40,000 available products. The scarcity issue led the company to create the “Nug Lotto,” where 5,000 - 10,000 names will be drawn each week from October 23 to December 11: 60,000 Nuggets are expected to be sent out by Christmas to the lucky winners of the lottery.

The gamification of the already popular product did nothing but increase people’s longing — 100,000 people registered the first week and the number had doubled as of November 8. The current back order is so immense that products will not be shipped until April 2021.

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