Both Home Depot and Lowe’s reported earnings this week and both had similar results. It was positive news for the big box retailers with some of the best results in a long time.

The momentum that began in the back half of last year continued throughout the first half, as we saw our customers engage more broadly in smaller home improvement projects. In fact, the performance across the business was the strongest we’ve seen in over two years.

Ted Decker, President and CEO of The Home Depot

Those positive results extended to grills with both noting that the respective merchandising category saw positive year-over-year comps.

And in DIY, we saw strength across our seasonal product categories including patio, grills and live goods.

Ted Decker, President and CEO of The Home Depot

The Lowe’s earnings call was heavily focused on their acquisition of Foundation Building Materials, which is great for them, but it meant it was light on grill talk. They did note positive comps though.

This quarter, we delivered positive comps in 9 of our 14 Merchandise Divisions, driven by continued growth in Pro and online and a solid recovery in our spring seasonal categories. Starting in Hardlines, we delivered positive comps in Hardware, Lawn & Garden and Tools with widespread strength in key seasonal categories, especially as weather improved. We drove positive comps in Lawn & Garden, partly driven by a solid performance in live goods and the support of our growers as we navigated weather challenges early in the quarter.

Bill Boltz, EVP of Merchandising at Lowe’s

The strength that the large retailers saw in grills, compared to the softness that brands saw, makes me think of what Middleby mentioned about retailers reducing their stock. It will be interesting to see how that plays out as we get into the holiday buying season deep in the year.

So I mean, as Bryan [Mittelman] said, we actually were seeing real growth kind of coming into the year with the tariffs that came to pretty much a screeching halt and then actually reversed the other way as our channel partners are taking inventory levels down to extremely low levels, we think — even potentially being out of stock later this year. So that’s obviously challenging, and I think that’s where the top line is putting pressure on the bottom line. I think as we play it out over a longer period of time, at some point, that is going to turn.

Tim FitzGerald, CEO of Middleby

Where and What Consumers are Buying

Home Depot noted that they are still seeing weakness in large discretionary projects. In a turn of events though, they saw improvements in big comp transactions, which could be a good sign for grills going forward.

Big-ticket comp transactions, or those over $1,000 dollars, were positive 2.6 percent compared to the second quarter of last year. We were pleased with the performance we saw in categories such as building materials, lumber, and hardware, however we continued to see softer engagement in larger discretionary projects where customers typically use financing to fund renovation projects.

Billy Bastek, EVP of Merchandising at The Home Depot

Some of the softness in large projects could trickle down to grill purchases though, especially in the case of major outdoor projects. In addition to the high rate environment, another headwind for projects is overall uncertainty.

When we talk generally though to our customers, each of our sets of consumers and pros, the number one reason for deferring the large project is general economic uncertainty, that is larger than prices of projects, of labor availability, all the various things we’ve talked about in the past. By a wide margin, economic uncertainty is number one.

Ted Decker, President and CEO of The Home Depot