found that visits to Home Depot and Lowe's spiked 1.2% and 1.9% year over year over the course of 2020's first quarter. And the flood of customers only continued to strengthen as April drew on. For the week of April 20, Home Depot's weekly store visits saw a 31.3% jump above its typical baseline, while Lowe's experienced a 71.8% rise in visits.
The beautiful spring weather in many parts of the United States is one significant factor, but sunny days have always been a boon to home improvement sales. "It does seem that people are still going to go ahead and do projects they had in mind because they have the wherewithal to do it, home prices are still going up, and they still have the jobs," Basham said. "That's what really has driven the vast majority of the improvement in their sales trends.