Discount code with us for 10% off OLPRO van awnings.
Use VANBANDITS10 at checkout.
Summary
Need space for your bikes, surf board or climbing gear? Get a van extension – a van awning. We caught up with Daniel from OLPRO, which supplies campervan awnings. These van awnings come in 2 sizes, 180-250cm and 250-290cm. However, there has been a rising trend for smaller awnings, like the Cubo & UNO. OLPRO emphasizes sustainability, using recycled materials and being B Corp accredited. Read on to learn more and about their pre-loved discounted products for a good bargain.
Focus: van awnings, campervan awnings, awnings modular design, campervan life, van life, van outdoor space, van extension
Interviewed by: Simon from Van Bandits
Interviewee: Daniel Walton, OLPRO, UK
Read time: 8-10mins
Simon, Van Bandits
Our community has a wide range of vehicles. Your van awnings, are they one size fits all, or do they cater for specific models?
Daniel, OLPRO
We’ve always worked around two sizes fit all. So, we have at the low end, from 180cm up to 250cm and then 250cm to 290cm and within those brackets we cover everything. A lot of our market is VWs, so there’s a lot in the kind of T5, T6, you know, on that lower end. Then we’ve got the crafters at the upper end and that’s really simplified it for people. Height is obviously one issue, the other issue is, how do people fit them? That’s trying to make every product that we produce as universal as possible, to fit and then fit within those two size ranges just matches everything. That’s the kind of basic premise we’ve always worked on.
Simon, Van Bandits
Okay, okay, so how would I go about finding the right awning for my VW or my Mercedes? Do you have specific products that would work better for one than the other?
Daniel, OLPRO
Two ways about it. The customer can come to us and tell us the height of their van. We can then advise which awning will fit. Or if people go on our website, we’ve got vans on the website, so you can shop by van, for example, if you’ve got a T25, you go on our website for T25.
There’s not too much diversification between, you know, whether it’s a transit, VW or a sprinter or whatever that you know, the majority fit them. We are basically trying to be as universal as possible, to be able to fit most vehicles.
Simon, Van Bandits
Sometimes people swap vans, don’t they? So, it’s quite nice if you don’t need to rebuy an awning.
What are the most popular van awnings being ordered by the van community at the moment, what’s your best seller?
Daniel, OLPRO
At the moment, we’ve seen a real swing towards smaller I would say, over the last 4 or 5 years. I think we actually, as designers’ kind of wanted to create a bigger and bigger range of awnings and give people more and more space, and we’ve always done really well at that end.
Then when we started launching things like the Cubo and particularly the UNO, which is our smallest camp awning, we saw a real kind of demand for that. I think it’s more that people are just going away for short breaks and it’s people sort of going somewhere, stopping overnight, and then moving on. And actually, what people are wanting is just somewhere to kind of put some kits out on an evening, or to kind of sit out in the morning, and if they’re on a campsite, to kind of mark a pitch. I think those kinds of short breaks have become much more popular, probably more so since COVID as well, that people just want quick get aways. So, I would say, when you look at our sales, the kind of volumes that we do, it’s much more geared towards the smallest stuff at the moment.
Simon, Van Bandits
Okay, okay, so weekend warriors and that kind of thing. I have seen something of a trend towards self-built mini campers, the smaller vans like Peugeot Partner or a Vauxhall Combo. Can your awnings fit those?
Daniel, OLPRO
Yeah, yeah. When we designed the Cubo, some years ago, we created an awning with a much narrower tunnel on it. It wasn’t designed specifically for the Volkswagen Caddy, but the caddy fraternity kind of took it up. And then, actually, from that point onwards, we had a lot of people come to us who are essentially car campers or kind of looking at much smaller vehicles like that. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it, rather than having to buy, say, a specific vehicle for camping, you’ve got something you use during the week, and then you can use it at the weekend as well and attach some kind of extra living space to it.
So yeah, definitely. And again, we have lots of conversations with people about vehicles that we’ve probably not listed to in the past or talked about and again, because of the universality of a lot of the connection systems in that we use, most of our products will fit to a lot of these vehicles, but particularly things like the things like the UNO and the Cubo, which are smaller, they work really, really well.
Simon, Van Bandits
It sounds to me like you use a lot of customer feedback, you take it on, and you work with that, with designing your products. How have your designs changed over the years? In 14 years, what are you making now that you weren’t making 14 years ago?
Daniel, OLPRO
We’ve changed. We’ve changed a lot. And I think you’re absolutely right. You know, consumer demand has kind of really driven that. We go to a lot of shows and events. We spend a lot of time outdoors ourselves and talk to people who have either bought our products or are looking to buy our products. And I would say one of the biggest things is around adaptability of products. People expect to buy something that they can kind of make use of, no matter where they are or what they’re doing with it.
I think a lot of our initial products were probably much more basic than they are now. So, if you take something like the cocoon, which is our leading large Cocoon Campervan Awning back in the day, was a relatively simple campervan awning that sat alongside the van, and that was kind of it. There wasn’t much more to it. Since that day, we’ve created add-on sections in the awning so people can extend it further if they want to. We’ve made it so the bedrooms can come in or stay out with blackout bedrooms as well. We’ve got extra beams in there for people who want to use it in kind of more stormy weather. For example, we’ve put a kitchen pod on the side of it so people can use that for either cooking or use as a toilet pod. The extension on the front of it is a new addition as well. We’ve also supplied extra doors so people can extend the front of the awning and make it bigger. They can then put an extra door on the front and have a separate compartment at the front. And one of the main uses for that is people who cycle. So, people are out biking during the day and then have space for their bikes.
We’re a means to an end. You know, some people are buying awnings because they want to go and do something else. It’s either people that are surfers, or cyclists and we’re trying to create that space. So, I think that adaptability point of it, and then the other really big thing, and a massive thing for us is sustainability.
Going back, you know, the sort of visions of camping that most people have were that last day at Glastonbury or at the Leeds Festival, where there’s just this field of strewn tents and, and one of the things that we started to do really, really early on, which I’m glad that we did, was to focus on how we could deal with the sustainability side of the industry.
We became the first camping company to be B Corp accredited. We went through that accreditation to say we were following sustainable methods within the business and within product development. We make products from recycled materials, and we offset our carbon through tree plants, we’ve got a recycled project where we sell used tents and awnings as well. So, we sort of dealt with all that. I would say that 14 years ago, we wouldn’t have been there, whereas now it’s very much part of what we do.
Simon, Van Bandits
One of the questions I’ve been desperate to ask you is in relation to the recycled plastic content of your van awnings, the OLTECH re-pro material on your website says it has a content level of eight plastic bottles per square meter. Does this make your awning material 100% recycled? And how do you quantify that?
Daniel, OLPRO
No, it’s not 100% unfortunately, there’s obviously an offset between making it as recycled as possible, but still ensuring the product works in the way that it needs to work, and ensuring the strength is there, that’s needed within the product as well. So, we continue to work on this.
I think at some point in the maybe the not-too-distant future, there’ll be 100% recycled. So, our canvas at the moment is as recycled as it possibly can be in terms of the material, but there are lots of other products we produce which aren’t made from recycled materials. At the moment, things like our furniture, and it’s things like that that we’re going to move on to now and start making sure that across the board, we’ve got a high percentage of recycled usage. Obviously over time, the tents and the awnings themselves, that’ll increase as well as we keep working on it.
Simon, Van Bandits
Excellent, excellent. Now it’s clear to me that innovation is a key part of what makes you popular, and it’s a key part of the OLPRO offering. What can we look forward to? And is the way forward in the future inflatable awnings?
Daniel, OLPRO
Actually, oddly, probably not. It’s a strange one in that we’re talking to customers on a daily basis, and we spend a lot of time talking about inflatable products.
When you look at sales, we’re still selling more pole van awnings, than we are inflatable and a lot of that is down to price. A lot of that is down to the fact that pole product is generally a lot cheaper. So, I don’t think there’s necessarily a need for people to always invest in inflatables. If I’m being honest, the future might be a combination of both of them. Customers are just looking for a good awning that does what they need it to do.
I think it comes back down to we’re just there to make sure that people can do what they want to do with their vans. And actually, if it’s something that’s modular, or is a combination of things, maybe gives people more options and less need to buy more than one product, which, at the end of the day, people ultimately want to buy the one thing that will do everything that they need it to do.
Simon, Van Bandits
Okay. Is there any way a canny Van Bandit can bag themselves a bargain?
Daniel, OLPRO
We do pre-loved. Ultimately there will be products that we get back. Some of it will be from the customer, who will think that it’s not what they thought it was and send it back. And then sometimes there’ll be a fault in a product, and it comes back to us. So, all these products, what happens is they go into our warehouse where they’re rechecked, and then they’re all listed as pre-loved items on our site. If there is an issue with them, the issue will be listed, but it’s always a small thing, and any major issue is dealt with, and then we re-list them. On our website, there’s a little pre-loved section, and every Thursday we update that page.
Also, if people are very, very canny with it, then we put our sample products on there too. Sometimes it’s kind of real exclusive, one-off products go on there that will never be available again, which we are just getting rid of, so it’s a good place.
Simon, Van Bandits
Excellent. Your new awnings, do they get a lifetime warranty of seven years?
Daniel, OLPRO
They’ve all got 12 months on them.
Simon, Van Bandits
Well, thank you very much. Is there anything else that you want to add or talk about that we haven’t covered?
Daniel, OLPRO
No, not at all. I mean, obviously, we’re always really open to input. If people want to contact us, then, by all means do.
Simon, Van Bandits
Excellent, excellent. Well, thank you very much for your time and your expert information.
Discount code with us for 10% off OLPRO van awnings.
Use VANBANDITS10 at checkout.
Simon has plenty of experience with converting campers and vanlife. In a former life he used to be ‘on the tools’ as a carpenter in the UK and has a strong interest in woodwork, interior designing and cabinet making. He loves the methodology of DIY campervan conversion, the setup and getting the ship on the road. Read more on Simon’s van bandits profile.
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