Why Now Is the Time to Buy a Christmas Decor Franchise

Christmas in February? For franchisees with Christmas Decor, an international leader in holiday decorating, that’s what it feels like. After supply-chain issues wreaked havoc on many people’s holiday decorating plans in 2021 — resulting in some receiving their holiday decorations late and in some cases, not at all — people are planning ahead in 2022.

“People are making decisions right now,” said Brandon Stephens, President of The Decor Group. “The last two years, we had more demand than we could service, and we started pushing customers to this year. Sales orders, as of right now, are up about 35% to date compared to last year. So we're really well-positioned to capture some of this business early and help some of these people who got burned.”

Christmas Decor has more than 300 franchised locations across the U.S. and Canada, making it the largest holiday decorating brand in North America. Since launching its franchising concept in 1996, the brand has grown rapidly, and the last two years have been the best in its history, with 2021 being its best year on record.

Stephens describes Christmas Decor as “a seasonal bolt-on business” for contractors who want to stay busy through the wintertime. For the green industry — ??businesses like landscaping, irrigation, tree care and lawn maintenance — Christmas Decor provides an easily integrated service that allows franchisees to not only keep their employees busy during the winter, when demand for their flagship services has slowed, but also to thrive throughout the year.

“We started off as a landscape company,” said Stephens. “Initially, Christmas decorating was just a way to stay busy, to keep people on staff. That's how it started. But after about five years, it accounted for about half of our net profit in the company. It ended up being the most profitable part of our business.”

Why Christmas Decor Is Positioned to Win in 2022

Historically, Christmas Decor has largely served residential clients. It still does, but in recent years, it has built a bigger book of business on the commercial side, too. According to Stephens, Christmas Decor clients are now around 60% residential and 40% commercial, with the balance continuing to tilt in favor of commercial, allowing franchisees to bring on more reliable and higher-margin corporate clients.

“Christmas Decor realized over time that there was an opportunity in the commercial world,” said Arnie Arsenault, a landscape design, construction and maintenance company owner who became a Christmas Decor franchisee in 1998. “It helped us develop a business mix, from residential and commercial. Commercials are a longer, maturing procedure. You don’t typically land shopping centers or cities in one year. It sometimes takes multiple years to land them. Once you do, it’s a longer-term relationship.”

Providing a high-margin service like holiday decorating for commercial clients has its financial benefits. But on the residential side, for seasonal contractors who offer multiple home services, the upside is more than just financial.

“You're recruiting at a very economically resilient client,” said Stephens. “Our residential clients tend to be on the more affluent side, and you’re building relationships with them. So if you're a contractor who offers other services, you may land them as a Christmas client, then you can go in and cross-sell them on all your other services.”

Another factor in Christmas Decor’s success in recent years is the diversification of its product offering, as it has added ancillary services like landscape lighting and a permanent roof-lighting product, called PermaLites 365.

PermaLites 365 is a roof-lighting product for both commercial and residential clients that uses RGB lights, which can create more than 16.7 million colors. This year-round lighting product is individually addressable, so clients can light up their home or business red, white and blue on the Fourth of July, they can make it all green for St. Patrick’s Day or they can represent the colors of the local high school football team on Friday night.

Between this product offering and other additional landscape lighting products, Christmas Decor has become the go-to bolt-on business for home-service contractors.

“One thing that we've seen some early interest in is the landscape lighting,” said Stephens. “We're offering a ‘franchise lite’ version, where we take Christmas out of it. So we can bring someone in just as a general outdoor lighting franchise. That's a lower entry level, and with our ability to offer multiple options for franchisees, we're pretty ambitious with our plans to continue to grow the network.”

Many home services are traditionally thankless jobs. Cleaning, cutting, trimming, disposing of waste — all the things people generally don’t want to do themselves. Because of this, employee retention and maintaining positive morale can be difficult for home-service companies.

According to Stephens, Christmas Decor franchisees have noticed a positive impact on company culture — an intangible emotional impact that gives employees a boost around the holidays, both from the work of holiday decorating itself and the dose of Christmas spirit clients provide.

“Holiday decorating is a little bit sexier than hanging drywall,” said Stephens. “It's a service that people want. And they usually have a smile on their face when they're talking to you about it. You’ll see a homeowner bringing hot chocolate and cookies out to your installation crew. They don't always do that for paint crews or landscaping crews. So it just has a positive emotional impact on the business, as well as on the financial side.”

While the rise in commercial business, the economic viability of the residential client base and the introduction of new ancillary franchise options are all great reasons for a contractor to become a Christmas Decor franchisee, the real reasons why now is the time to buy are simple.

The demand, and the opportunity it creates.

“With the pandemic, people have been wanting joy in their life, and with Christmas Decor, we can bring that to people,” said Arsenault. “People are still spending more time at home, and home improvement sales have been tremendous. There is a great opportunity now.”

Christmas Decor has open territories across the U.S. available for franchisees as it aims to open 35 new franchises this year. The demand is there, and the brand’s goal is to partner with franchisees to satisfy that demand in 2022 and beyond.

“I wish I’d had a hundred more franchises the last couple of years because we could have captured more of the demand,” said Stephens. “We’ve just had more business than we could even install. We anticipate the same in 2022, and we’re excited to partner with more franchisees this year so we can capitalize on this opportunity together.”

About Christmas Decor

Founded in 1986 by Blake Smith, Christmas Decor has become the leading holiday decorating brand in the U.S. and Canada. Originally created as an off-season supplement to the landscaping business, the Texas-based franchise now brings holiday cheer to over 300 communities across North America, ultimately creating jobs for 3,000-plus seasonal workers that might otherwise be unemployed. Backed by a strong business model and double-digit revenue increase year-over-year for the last 11 years, Christmas Decor is looking to grow in markets across the U.S. and Canada. For more information on Christmas Decor, please visit https://www.christmasdecor.net/franchise/.