Lowe’s offers events for kids and a loyalty program where Americans buy homes later

NORTH BERGEN, NJ – Close to wide aisles of home improvement supplies, some Louie This Saturday, the youngest shoppers worked on projects of their own.

The children, some as young as three years old, wore miniature versions of the retailer’s signature red aprons as they collected washing machine-shaped piggy banks at the retailer’s children’s workshop.

Lowe’s is trying to attract a younger audience — though it hasn’t suddenly found an untapped market for home improvement spending from preschoolers. When the retailer this month relaunched its Kids Club program and began handing out lollipops to children who visit its stores, it was already a step in a strategy to win more business from younger adult parents, especially those who are not yet homeowners.

However, this is not just limited to young parents. Lowe’s wants to attract new shoppers from Generation Z and millennials, who are buying homes later than their parents. Other moves to attract groups include adding a wider range of merchandise through a third-party marketplace and tapping into a network of social media influencers.

The company wants to attract more repeat visits to stores and websites, as the U.S. housing market remains sluggish, consumers are putting off home purchases until later in life, and rising prices for everyday expenses are causing more people to postpone purchases and big projects like kitchen renovations. It’s adding some features through My Lowe’s Rewards, a customer loyalty program for DIY shoppers, which the company launched two years ago and which has grown to more than 30 million members.

“What we faced from a marketing perspective and an overall brand perspective is how to increase relevancy among consumers who are not in the homeowner category or who want to be in the homeowner category, but are not financially able to do so,” said Gene Wilson, Lowe’s chief marketing officer.

This encouraged the home improvement retailer to consider “increasing relevancy in new ways,” including adding more events and looking for surprising or buzzy merchandise that might catch the attention of a potential shopper on TikTok, she said.

This is where kids fit in too. She said one of Lowe’s surprising findings from market research is the strong influence children have in shaping where their parents choose to shop, especially for millennial parents.

Postponing projects

As home prices and borrowing costs rise, more Americans have put off homeownership, a stage of life that tends to push people toward buying paint or appliances, or hiring home professionals like electricians or plumbers. The average age of a first-time homebuyer is now 40, an all-time high, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Home improvement sales have been declining since the COVID pandemic years. Lowe’s expects its total sales to reach $86 billion this year. This represents an increase from $83.7 billion in the same period last year, but it will be less than in all four years before that. Lowe’s also expects comparable sales, an industry metric that strips out one-time factors like store openings and closings, to be flat compared to last year.

Compared with its competitor Home Depot, Lowe’s relies more on DIY shoppers. About 70% of its sales come from these consumers, and the rest is from home professionals such as contractors, roofers and electricians who homeowners typically hire, according to the company.

Home Depoton the other hand, has historically drawn about half of its sales from home professionals and the other half from DIY shoppers.

Executives from both Lowe’s and Home Depot said they saw a decline in demand for big-ticket items and big-ticket projects, which they attributed to slowing housing turnover and economic uncertainty. Housing turnover typically encourages projects, as homeowners spruce up their homes before selling or fix them up when they move in.

In the meantime, both companies have focused on attracting more professionals, who tend to be bigger and more reliable spenders. In 2024, Home Depot acquired SRS Distribution, a Texas-based company that sells supplies to landscape, pool and roofing professionals, in the largest acquisition in its history. It has bought other companies as well, including building products distributor GMS last year.

Lowe’s has made two of its own acquisitions in the past year. It purchased Foundation Building Materials, a distributor of drywall, insulation and other interior building products to major residential and commercial professionals, and Artisan Design Group, which provides design and installation services for flooring, cabinetry and countertops to home builders and property managers.

However, Chuck Groom, a retail analyst at Gordon Haskett Equity Research, said that next year, Lowe’s greater reliance on do-it-yourself shoppers could give the company an advantage. He upgraded the company’s shares earlier this month from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating due to signs of an improving housing backdrop.

While the housing market remains challenging, furniture sales have rebounded in recent quarters and more consumers appear to be getting used to higher borrowing costs as the “new normal,” Groom said. About 35% of consumers said in the equity research firm’s most recent quarterly survey that they would be willing to buy a home with a mortgage interest rate of 5.5% to 6%. This is up from about 25% in the third quarter survey.

The average interest rate on a 30-year mortgage has fallen slightly in recent months and was about 6.2% last week.

These are promising signs that consumers may be returning to more DIY projects, even if the recovery is gradual, he said.

Lowe’s shares reflected some optimism about the year ahead. Its shares have underperformed the S&P 500 over the past year and the past five years, but its shares are up about 22% in the past six months. This compares to Home Depot, which saw its shares rise about 4% over the same period.

One of the main goals of Lowe’s strategy is to give customers more reasons to interact with its app or website, or make store visits part of their routine, even in between DIY projects.

Lowe’s hopes the free straws, for example, will get kids to prompt their parents to stop by a store where they can buy some items or give parents more time to stay in peace when comparing appliances in the aisles, said Amanda Bailey, vice president of customer marketing and loyalty at Lowe’s.

Lowe’s is also trying to give shoppers more reasons to join or use its loyalty program. Customers must now sign up for a free monthly Kids Club workshop through the program, and kids can collect digital badges on their parents’ loyalty account for completing projects. Customers can collect points from purchases that become MyLowe Money, an incentive aimed at urging consumers to purchase everyday items such as household cleaning products or light bulbs from the retailer.

She added that Lowe’s plans to expand the children’s workshops, which cater to children ages 3 to 10, and add more complex projects for older children and teens.

It also tested other free events for loyalty program members at select stores, including kids’ soccer clinics, a ladies’ night out with do-it-yourself projects like building an animal terrarium, and a family night out with games and hands-on activities.

“Traditionally, loyalty programs have been about rewarding transactions,” said Bailey, who previously worked on driving loyalty at brands including Hilton and Tory Burch. “So now we’re thinking, how can we engage with clients at different stages of their lives, at different moments in their lives?”

Besides typical home improvement items, Lowe’s tries to release products that surprise customers or go viral on social media. Lowe’s merchandising and marketing teams have begun developing a 12-month plan for items the company is betting can become blockbuster products, with about three to five items debuting each quarter, Wilson said. Loyalty program members get early or exclusive access to purchase some products, Wilson said.

One of the first drops was Lowe’s mini buckets, which recently came out in hot pink. Kobalt’s mini kits, which come in different colors, have also gained traction on social media as customers use them to organize their makeup or store school supplies.

Lowe’s has other items in the works that it hopes will generate buzz. These include scented candles and a tote that will drop in the spring, Lowe’s busiest sales season, and a pet-themed Advent calendar for the holidays.

“These are affordable impulse buys and are great ways to introduce our brands to consumers who wouldn’t think of us otherwise,” Wilson said.

Lowe’s also launched its Creator Network in June to encourage more influencers to post their DIY projects or purchases. It has also partnered with popular social media creator MrBeast, who has a storefront on the retailer’s website where customers can purchase his favorite items.

Its marketplace, which launched in late 2024, was a way to add more brands and expand categories.

Gordon Haskett’s Groom said the company’s initiatives to gain customer loyalty, especially among younger shoppers, were important, but they “won’t get things moving right away.”

“They are trying to control what they can control,” he added. “The winds of housing turnover are tough for them now.”

Home Depot has also taken steps of its own to attract customers, including launching a new platform for creatives late last year and creating a new hub on its website offering tips and ideas for new homeowners. This has sped up customer deliveries as well. The company said at its investor day in December that more than half of its deliveries are now made same or next day, more than triple the number in 2022. It is also offering free workshops for children in its stores.

However, while home improvement retailers try to win a limited selection of business, they also compete with independent and specialty home improvement stores, privately held Ace Hardware, and retail giants like Walmart and Amazon, which carry some of the same merchandise.

Although it may not yield immediate profits, events will play a role in that competition moving forward. For families who came to Lowe’s Kids’ Workshop at its North Bergen store on Saturday, the activity was a welcome way to spend a snow day and get their kids working with their hands.

Yvette Crisostomo, a mother from Fort Lee, New Jersey, brought her three-year-old son Kai to the workshop. She coordinated with two friends who also brought their children to the event.

“This is like a set play date for everyone,” she said. “It builds his confidence, too,” she added.

As the event ended, he made clear the goal of Lowe’s strategy. Many parents browsed the aisles of Lowe’s for items after completing the project. Crisostomo said she sometimes ends up shopping, too.

“My eyes are roving, and if I need something, I’ll come to Lowe’s,” she said.