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Given that camping presumably puts participants into closer contact with the natural environment, it follows that some tent and sleeping bag manufacturers are going green. Among these are Marmot, Big Agnes and Sierra Designs; the latter picked up the “Sprout Award” from Rock & Ice magazine last month for its Green Effect program.

Announced in 2007, Sierra Designs’ Green Effect program incorporates five goals: “build environmentally friendly products whenever possible; support environmental programs and organizations; grow programs that promote sustainable outdoor recreation; reduce costs and waste; [and] enhance community involvement through its employees, reps, retailers and consumers.” In terms of environmentally friendly products, that commitment translates into bags such as the Verde 20, Déjà vu 20, Nahche 0 and Winema 0, which use 90 percent-plus green materials. These materials include Climashield Green, Primaloft Recycled, Cocona lining material and EcoSensor recycled shell material.

Eco-friendliness is not the only priority driving innovation in tents and bags. For example, Sierra Designs launched into four-season Convert 2, with an external pole feed to internal pole sleeves. The tent comes with removable Jake’s Corners on the inside as well as an air flow vent system to increase the strength during harsh weather conditions, and a removable vestibule. The company’s new ultra-light Velox series comes in one- (3 lbs.), two- (4 lbs. 2 oz.) and three-person (5 lbs.) versions, providing a hybrid single and double-wall construction for fast and light set-up and use, according to Sierra Designs.

ReserveAmerica recently gave a plaudit to Eureka! for its N!ergy series: tents wired for power with the E! Power system, which, according to the manufacturer, “enables campers to use convenient 12-volt accessories such as lights, fans or mattress pumps right inside the tents.” The Eureka! N!ergy tent series was selected from thousands of products from all major categories as ReserveAmerica’s overall industry winner for 2007.

A luxury such as this might be just the ticket to persuade customers who’d be attracted in theory to camping, but balk at the idea of too much “roughing it.” That kind of squeamishness might strike your more hardy outdoor customers as laughable—but both groups have the potential to spend money in this category. Clearly, before you can meet the camping customer’s needs in tents and sleeping bags, you have to understand how to meet those needs. Sorting through the hundreds of choices available in each of these categories becomes a little easier when you group those choices by their relevance to the people who will be buying and using them.

Doing that means first identifying who those people are and what kinds of camping they tend toward. You should look at both your existing customer base and beyond, to the type or types of campers you’d like to draw into the store. Identifying those customers as either family campers or backpackers isn’t the end of it, either. There are occasional family campers and those who like to get away as many weekends as possible during the warmer months, and you will encounter sometime backpackers as well as those whose idea of a good time is to disappear into the wilderness for a couple of weeks at a time.

Each of these customers will have different requirements in tents and bags. The avid family group will need a tent that can stand up to more frequent use, and may also need bags that are rated to lower temperatures, because their camping season may stretch into early fall. The casual and hardcore backpackers each need lightweight tents, designed to compress into small, manageable silhouettes that will co-exist peaceably with the other gear. Unlike the family group, each backpacker will carry his or her own tent. However, the frequent backpacker will likely be in the market for something more technical and therefore (usually) more expensive.