Pre-lit Xmas tree sales shone brightly for dealers - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Jan 24, 2000 by Kate Griffin

Customers of Menards and Frank's Nursery paid twice as much for the convenience of trees with pre-strung lights

NATIONAL REPORT -- "Anything lit exploded in sales" during the 1999 holiday season. That's the view of Maria Dipilla, assistant vp-Christmas for Frank's Nursery, the nation's largest lawn and garden specialty chain. That trend went double for the sale of artificial Christmas trees sold with lights already strung on them.

This past holiday season, Frank's for the first time offered pre-lit artificial trees at all 260 of its stores. The dealer sold tens of thousands of them to consumers willing to pay for the convenience of not having to string tree lights. A pre-strung tree costs about twice the price of a similar-sized, traditional artificial tree.

The increased popularity of pre-lit holiday trees is creating a growing market for distributors, who import the product from China. Kansas City-based Sterling, one of the nation's largest importers of artificial trees, saw pre-lit sales double in 1999 from the previous year, according to owner Larry Weiner, who added that he expects sales to double again in 2000.

While pre-lit trees have been in existence for about five years, a dramatic growth in sales has come about only in the last year or two, as more mainstream retailers began offering them. Glenview, Ill.-based Ulta-Lit Trees, for instance, started out doing business with pool and patio shops, but in recent years it has branched out to bigger-name retailers. "We're entering year four of selling to True Value, and we just completed a second year of selling to Menards' said owner John DeCosmo. NHCN verified that two Chicago-area Menards stores quickly sold out of the product.

Ulta-Lit said it's achieved about a 25 percent increase in sales of pre-lit trees in 1999. DeCosmo attributes the product's popularity in large part to "time poverty -- this product, like microwaves, really addresses that issue."

Ulta-Lit, which offers styles ranging from a three-foot tree with 100 lights for $29 to a 10-foot tree with nearly 1,800 lights for as much as $500, addresses other potential resistance to its product by including pine-smelling incense, an extension cord, instructional video and three-year warranty, DeCosmo added.

"It's so much easier -- and the lights are spread evenly throughout the tree," said Dipilla of Frank's Nursery, which drew its assortment from three vendors. Five different styles, ranging from a 3-foot version for $19.99 to a 7 1/2-foot cedar for $250, had sales of pre-lit trees gaining on, but not yet overtaking, artificial trees without lights, Dipilla said. That, she added, is likely to change in the not-too-distant future. "It's a growing category -- and becoming more popular."