Forget Santa Clause. Christmas Décor is coming to town.
The Christmas lighting and decorating franchise recently announced plans to open locations in Seguin, Bulverde, Converse and other areas in north San Antonio within the year, said Greg Avdoian, spokesman for Christmas Décor.
The company provides holiday decoration installation services that leave the customer completely hands-off, said Tammy Sheffield, a franchise owner in Kerrville and co-owner of Case Fence.
“After Christmas, we take everything down, box it up and store it under [the customer’s] name,” Sheffield said Friday.
“We map everything out and label all the cords and lighting” so the decorations will be ready for the next year.
Steve Moore, franchise development director for Christmas Décor, said the company hopes to settle into New Braunfels sometime soon, too.
He said the booming area between Bulverde and New Braunfels is a perfect location for another franchise.
“I would love to have a franchise in New Braunfels," he said. “All that area is growing.”
The company targets outdoor service companies that might go through down-time during the winter months, such as pool contractors, roofing companies, lawn care and irrigation companies, or anybody in the home service industry, Moore said.
“From October to December companies increase cash flow, and it reciprocates back into their landscaping business as well,” he said. The company is growing quickly, but Moore said Christmas Décor still is quite selective in who is brought in as a franchisee.
“We award franchises, we don’t sell franchises,” he said.
The area covered by each franchise also is specially formulated to offer the best quality to each area, depending on the size of the franchisee’s company, but this means that Seguin’s location likely would not offer services in New Braunfels, Moore said.
The company, which hopes to add five to 10 franchises in the northern part of San Antonio alone, specifically targets growing communities such as northern San Antonio because their demographics generally include those with disposable incomes, Moore said.
Sheffield said her customer base is slightly different.
“We have a lot of older people who cannot do the job and families that are just too busy,” she said. “My personal opinion is that people just don’t have the time.”
Sheffield said her company also has received calls from husbands serving in Iraq looking to provide their wives with a holiday surprise.
Christmas Décor, a Lubbock-based company, was founded in 1986 and expanded as an add-on business for landscaping business owners.
It currently has 375 locations across 48 states, Canada and Bermuda.
The company’s expansion into the San Antonio area is part of its plan to open more than 100 new markets nationwide.
