Bill Boltz
Executive Vice President, Merchandising at Lowe's Companies
Thanks, Marvin, and good morning, everyone. As Marvin mentioned, we are pleased with our sales performance in the 4th-quarter. We are encouraged by the broad-based strength we delivered in Pro with positive Pro comps across all merchandising divisions for the 4th-quarter and the full-year, as well as the continued momentum in our online sales. In addition, it's clear that our seasonal offers for the DIY customer hit the mark in categories like appliances, tools, storage and holiday gifts as Lowe's was the go-to destination for many holiday shoppers. Starting with home --, we delivered strong positive comps across all of our major appliance categories.
We're pleased that we took share in a challenging market, especially when homeowners continue to exercise caution around spending on big-ticket discretionary items. Our results were driven by our investments in providing a seamless omnichannel customer experience, including the widest selection of the leading brands that offer innovation and value, whether consumers choose to shop online or in-store or a combination of the two.
We have built a best-in-class market delivery model to deliver big and bulky products like appliances, patio furniture and grills, allowing us to double the number of next day deliveries over the past few years. And as a reminder, instead of going through our stores, these products now flow from our supply-chain directly to a customer's home or job site.
In fact, we are the only retailer that can now deliver and install a major appliance the next day-in almost every ZIP code. This is critical for customers who need to replace a broken appliance immediately as this type of purchase accounts for more than 70% of the industry's appliance sales. Our enhanced customer experience, along with the expanded capacity for rapid delivery helps further strengthen our leadership position in appliances.
We also continue to innovate and enhance our private brand lineup as consumers continue to look for more value across categories. For example, we're expanding our selection of large-format luxury vinyl flooring nationwide, giving customers the on-trend look they want and the performance that they need.
We're excited to have the Stainmaster brand within our portfolio to now bring the most trusted brand in carpet to new flooring categories like luxury vinyl and tile. We recently launched our Lowe's Essentials brand, which promises low prices on a range of home basics for value-conscious customers. We're starting with a handful of products priced at $10 and below and special launch items under $5, including clothes hangers, gardening tools and water cans positioned in the card start area at the front of the store.
And because our private brands typically have higher margins than their national brand counterparts, these products will help increase our private brand sales and support our margin goals. Turning now to Building Products, where we delivered positive comps in-Building Materials and lumber, driven by the continued strength in Pro as well as storm recovery and rebuilding across the Southeast.
We were pleased with the continued growth in outdoor categories like roofing, siding and decking, driven by our investment in Pro inventory and our improved in-stocks. In hardlines, we saw a strong sell-through and an improved margin performance in the 4th-quarter. These results were supported by great execution from our merchandising services team or MST. Our seasonal offering, including live holiday nursery, tools and pre-lit trees resonated with consumers during the holidays.
We also saw customers get excited about our 10-foot-tall animatronic Yeti named Bumble, which we sold through almost as fast as we could get them in-stock. In addition, we delivered solid growth in apparel, where our expanded workwear lineup, including the extension of our car heart assortment to more than 1,000 stores was popular amongst our holiday shoppers. And once again, customers couldn't get enough of the more unique items like our Mini Lowes buckets and Mini cobalt toolboxes, which drove engaging viral moments on social media.
Looking ahead, we're excited for spring, our biggest season of the year. We are ready with a strong in-stock position and the best product and brand lineup and home-improvement. Like in outdoor power equipment, where we are the only home center with both Toro, the leading gas-powered brand and EGO, the leading battery-powered brand, truly an unmatched offering in retail.
And in our garden centers, we're inspiring our customers to take on new projects this spring with vignettes that showcase all the products they need for vertical gardens, mailbox displays, tree rings and more. As they shop, customers can rely on interactive signage to help them select the right plants for their space and local growing zone, ensuring they get everything they need to complete their outdoor projects. We've also expanded our assortment of StayGreen products, our own lawn and garden brand.
The updated packaging and product make the extra performance and value easy for our customers to find. This year, we're in an even stronger position to meet the customers' backyard needs, and we're seeing some early momentum in patio and grills in areas where the weather has already started to turn. Our patio assortments are localized for the market and we have a great lineup of grills across Webber, Charborough, Blackstone and Pitbass, including new Lowe's exclusive products like the Webber Stealth family of Grills. Overall, we're pleased that where the weather has cooperated, spring is already off to a good start.
Finally, we're excited to build-on the great progress that we've made with our DIY loyalty program since we launched it last year. We have built a base of 30 million members who are now outspending non-members by nearly 50%. It's clear that these customers see the value in this free program, which now gives them even more incentive to choose Lowe's.
This spring, we'll lean into loyalty by offering exclusive member deals and doorbusters featuring some of our best-selling products and will support these offers with tech-enabled marketing designed to drive traffic and sales during this important season. We took the learnings from the successful launch of Milo's Rewards and we've applied them as we redesigned our pro loyalty program, which Joe will discuss in detail in just a few minutes. In closing, I'd like to thank our vendor partners, our merchants and our inventory and supply-chain teams for all their effort and hard work to continue to serve our customers, provide innovation and value and drive results. With that, that, Joe, I'll now turn the call over to you.
