Christmas Décor, the nationwide holiday décor and lighting business, saw $75 million in revenue last year. In 2023, the brand expects to exceed $87 million due to increased consumer spending.
A report from Deloitte indicates that 82% of shoppers plan on spending on non-gift purchases, such as lighting and decorations, which is up 5% from 2022. Respondents in the $50K–$99K and $200K+ income groups also say they plan to invest heavily in non-gift items after showing restraint over the past two years.
Brandon Stephens, president of Christmas Décor, that what they’ve seen over the years is that the holidays are important as they’ve had 12 years of double-digit growth.
“The holiday season is a time where they spend money, and even though that ebbs and flows over the years, what we see is, regardless of what economic headwinds there are, people tend to cut things out, but they don’t cut back so much on the holidays,” Stephens says.
He says the client base they target is more likely to skip a vacation trip during more challenging times and focus their attention on their home. Stephens says their average installation cost for a residential home across the U.S. is about $2,400.
“There a lot of line times in a household budget that are bigger than that,” Stephens says. “People just prioritize that as something that’s important. They want their home to be comfortable and welcoming during the holidays if they’re going to be there. In terms of priorities, it continues to rise on people’s lists.”
Christmas Décor experienced explosive growth from 2020 to 2022. Stephens says they weren’t certain if that trend would continue this year, but they’ve been pleasantly surprised. Last year, they did 54,000 properties and this year, Stephens anticipates they’ll have over 60,000 properties. He says the average retention rate across the network is around 81%.
Stephens says part of the reason the holiday décor market has grown is a result of the overall growth of the industry. While 10 years ago, people couldn’t believe there were companies that would install and store your holiday décor, the more landscaping business offering the service has boosted awareness and desire for the service.
“We used to be where we were completely creating the market,” Stephens says. “You generated sales by going out in marketing and informing people that the service was available and then people would call. Now, we have calls, we have web leads and incoming phone calls where people sought us out.”
Stephens says because they position themselves as a full-service, white-glove experience, clients are willing to pay for them to design, install, maintain, take down and store their holiday décor. He says their client base tends to be more economically resilient and that while it’s an elective service, it continues to be one that is a priority for customers.
Over the years, Christmas Décor has seen a number of technological advancements, but homeowners still tend to prefer warm white lights. Stephens says they sell those six to seven times more than any other lighting color.
“What that tells me is that people are always looking for that authentic experience, that traditional holiday experience at their home,” Stephens says. “It’s just really important to people and continues to rise in importance. It just appears that they cut other things out before they cut out their decorating.”
Stephens says one of the benefits of offering holiday lighting is landscape companies can deliver the service without having to change the infrastructure of their company.
“You’re doing it with a lot of the same people, the trucks, the trailers, a lot of the tools and facilities and personnel that you already have,” Stephens says.
With this rising demand for holiday lighting, Stephens says it’s a good idea to stock up on enough product as the last thing you want to do is pay for expedited freight.
“You don’t ever want to be waiting on product to arrive to get an installation done because, at this point in the season, every second matters,” Stephens says. “Stocking up at the end is a good policy. You just don’t ever want to be waiting on product to get there for installation because that client wants that installation done. Especially when you get into December 1, right around where we’re at now. Every day counts and some people may cancel the order if you’re a day off. You never want to be waiting. You never want production waiting on product.”
