ECHO, Home Depot, and the Shifting Balance of the OPE Market

Market Resilience and the Role of String Trimmers

Despite infla­tion­ary pres­sures and loom­ing tar­iffs, the Out­door Pow­er Equip­ment (OPE) cat­e­go­ry* has demon­strat­ed resilience. On a dol­lar basis, string trim­mers con­sis­tent­ly account for 12 – 13% of OPE sales between 2020 and 2025, plac­ing them as a mid-tier cat­e­go­ry by rev­enue, larg­er than hand­held chain­saws or hedge trim­mers but small­er than mow­ers. On a unit basis, how­ev­er, string trim­mers are the mar­ket leader. With over 20% of OPE units sold between 2021 and 2025, they rival walk-behind mow­ers in vol­ume. The high unit share high­lights string trim­mers as both a gate­way prod­uct and a vol­ume anchor for brands, mak­ing even mod­est share shifts sig­nif­i­cant in dol­lar terms.

*Defined here as all pow­ered lawn tools exclud­ing gen­er­a­tors and pres­sure washers

String Trimmers Retailer and Brand Dynamics

Retail­er strate­gies shape how these shifts play out. Home Depot’s 2020 reset removed EGO, cen­ter­ing bat­tery around RYOBI, Mil­wau­kee, and DeWalt while lean­ing on ECHO for gas. Lowe’s dou­bled down on EGO exclu­siv­i­ty, giv­ing it an edge in bat­tery. Home Depot still dom­i­nates, with 47% mar­ket share in 2025, while Lowe’s hov­ers around 20%. Ama­zon is climb­ing, from 8% in 2021 to 13% in 2025.

On the brand side, RYOBI leads but is slid­ing (25% in 2021 to 17% in 2025). ECHO holds steady at 12 – 14%, resilient in a com­pet­i­tive mar­ket. EGO dou­bled its share from 6% to 11%, aid­ed by Lowe’s. Mil­wau­kee and DeWalt are edg­ing up, while Crafts­man declined from 11% to 7%. There is some con­sol­i­da­tion hap­pen­ing in the string trim­mer indus­try with the long­tail of brands shrink­ing to 27%.

ECHO in a Down Market

From Jan­u­ary through August 2025, over­all string trim­mer sales declined 4% year-over-year, yet ECHO grew 8%, mak­ing it one of the few brands gain­ing in a down mar­ket. RYOBI, Crafts­man and DeWalt all saw Y/Y sales declines. The oth­er large brands which saw an increase in sales Y/Y were EGO and Mil­wau­kee. This means ECHO not only defend­ed its base but also out­per­formed the mar­ket, climb­ing into the clear #2 posi­tion and gain­ing share while many peers contracted.

The Home Depot Effect

ECHO’s recent gains are ampli­fied by its deep­ened part­ner­ship with The Home Depot. After Home Depot’s 2020 OPE reset, which removed EGO from its shelves and con­sol­i­dat­ed bat­tery lead­er­ship with RYOBI, Mil­wau­kee, and DeWalt, ECHO emerged as the go-to gas brand while selec­tive­ly scal­ing its bat­tery portfolio.

While the mar­ket has seen a shift away from gas string trim­mers (from 34% in 2022 to 31% in 2025), The Home Depot’s gas string trim­mer mar­ket share has been a bit more resilient, only drop­ping half a per­cent­age point over the same period.

In gas string trim­mers, ECHO’s dom­i­nance is clear, climb­ing from 63% share in 2022 to 83% in 2025. In all trim­mers com­bined, ECHO has advanced from 23% to 30% over the same peri­od, while RYOBI slid from 44% to 37%. Mil­wau­kee made mod­est gains, but ECHO is vis­i­bly clos­ing the gap.

Bat­tery trim­mers remain more com­pet­i­tive, with RYOBI still at near­ly half of sales, Mil­wau­kee surg­ing to a quar­ter, and DeWalt steady around one-fifth. ECHO’s share here is still small, but it has near­ly dou­bled year-over-year, sig­nal­ing trac­tion for its 56V eFORCE platform.

Top String Trimmers at Home Depot in 2025

Unit­ed States, Online + B&M, Jan­u­ary 2025 — August 2025
Source: E‑Receipt Data, In-Store Receipt Data, Credit/​Debit Card Data, and Web­scraped Data

1. ECHO 21.2cc Gas 2‑Stroke Straight Shaft String Trim­mer (Mar­ket Share 6.2%)
2. RYOBI 40V 15 in. Expand-It Cord­less Bat­tery String Trim­mer (Mar­ket Share 5.3%)
3. Mil­wau­kee M18 Fuel 18V 16 in. Brush­less Cord­less String Trim­mer (Mar­ket Share 2.7%)

What This Means for Retailers and Brands

For retail­ers and brands, string trim­mers demon­strate how sta­ble cat­e­go­ry demand can mask sig­nif­i­cant shifts in pow­er mix and com­pet­i­tive dynam­ics. The steady move toward bat­tery requires assort­ment adjust­ments, while ECHO’s recent gains high­light the impor­tance of strong retail part­ner­ships. Stay­ing aligned with these trends will be key to sus­tain­ing growth in the OPE market.

Inter­est­ed in see­ing more use cas­es for this data or insights from anoth­er cat­e­go­ry? The Yip­it­Da­ta team will be at the HIRI Sum­mit on Octo­ber 22 – 23, 2025. Sched­ule time to con­nect with our team live at the event. Oth­er­wise, fill out the form at the fol­low­ing link and an insights ana­lyst will reach out soon.

About YipitData

With over 205 mil­lion home improve­ment data points annu­al­ly, Yip­it­Da­ta offers the most accu­rate and gran­u­lar insights into OPE and oth­er home improve­ment sec­tors. By com­bin­ing mul­ti­ple data sources with pre­dic­tive mod­el­ing, Yip­it­Da­ta deliv­ers action­able intel­li­gence with min­i­mal lag, enabling brands and retail­ers to make informed, data-dri­ven decisions.