Results from The Home Depot and Lowe’s Companies, Inc. reinforce a theme we’ve been seeing in the data for some time: the housing market remains a meaningful constraint on consumer spending.

Consumer Edge consumer spending data shows that home improvement and home furnishings have been relative underperformers, as elevated rates, limited housing turnover and affordability pressures keep consumers cautious on discretionary home-related spend. Home Depot described housing conditions as “frozen” and said larger discretionary projects remain under pressure, while Lowe’s cited persistent DIY macro pressure.

At the same time, there’s an interesting pricing dynamic beneath the surface. Our data shows average transaction size growth accelerating across Home & Garden, with a growing share of brands seeing higher average ticket YoY. Home Depot similarly noted some same-product AUR increases during the quarter.

Bar and line chart of Home & Garden average transaction size showing median YoY average ticket change rising to roughly 2.8% and about 63% of brands up YoY as of 7/31/2026.

There are pockets of resilience, including smaller seasonal projects, repair and maintenance, and home furnishings companies less dependent on whole-home furnishing projects. However, the data does not yet point to a broad-based and robust recovery.

How business leaders use this data

  • Category managers at home improvement retailers track average ticket and transaction counts as separate signals, so they can see whether a soft quarter is a traffic problem or a basket problem.
  • Strategy teams benchmark their own average ticket against the full set of Home & Garden brands week by week, instead of waiting for competitors’ quarterly results to show where pricing stands.
  • Insights analysts monitor repair and maintenance and seasonal project spend on their own, sizing the pockets of demand that hold up while larger discretionary projects stay under pressure.

See how Consumer Edge works with home and garden brands

Notes: Consumer Edge U.S. credit and debit card data, 91-day year-over-year change through 7/31/2026. Median YoY average ticket change reflects the median across tracked Home & Garden brands. % of brands up YoY reflects the share of those brands with positive YoY average ticket growth.

Michael Gunther

is the SVP, Research & Market Intelligence at Consumer Edge. Explore more of his insights here.

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