Retail Christmas lights and Commercial Christmas lights are two different grades of Christmas lights separated by levels of quality in the following key areas: durability, design, lifespan, and appearance. Retail Christmas lights are made to be affordable at the expense of quality, while commercial Christmas lights are made for superior performance in all key areas.

Design

Most retail-grade Christmas lights are made from a two-piece bulb and socket design. This allows for bulb replacement, it also means potential exposure to moisture, water, and debris. Retail lights have a much higher chance for failure than commercial lights because of this design.

Christmas Designers’ commercial-grade lights are constructed with a one-piece bulb socket design that prevents light failure caused by moisture, water, and debris from working into the socket. This water-resistant design allows commercial Christmas lights to handle snow, ice, and other outdoor elements. Although the one-piece design doesn’t allow for bulb replacement, it prevents the problems that create the need to replace bulbs in the first place.

Durability

The basic design and cheap components that retail lights are made from result in minimal durability. Retail lights are an affordable option because of their low-cost materials and components—but they can fail much sooner. Low-cost material and a two-piece design makes retail lights more prone to damage and exposure to the elements, often resulting in higher rates of failure.

Commercial-grade lights are manufactured with high-grade materials and premium components for superior durability. High-quality commercial lights also have a shatterproof design that prevents cracks and breaks. The one-piece design found in most commercial-grade Christmas lights significantly bolsters durability by preventing failure caused by moisture, water, and debris.

Lifespan

Cheap components and a two-piece design mean that retail Christmas lights suffer from a lack of longevity. Generally, retail lights last only 2 to 3 seasons. In some cases, retail lights can fail to last even one full season. A set of high-quality commercial Christmas lights that’s cared for properly can well outlast retail lights, and has the ability to last 25,000 to 75,000 hours, or approximately 6 to 7 seasons.

Appearance

Retail Christmas lights are less visually appealing than commercial Christmas lights due to their low cost components and having only half-wave rectified lights. Half-wave rectified refers to how many times a set of LED lights cycle on and off per second. All LED lights work through these cycles and are either half or full-wave. Full-wave lights cycle twice as fast as half-wave lights. The high-grade materials and premium components, such as diodes, of commercial lights combine with full-wave rectified functionality for lights that are brighter and more vibrant than retail lights.

Discover the difference that commercial Christmas lights can make in your own display—try your next set of lights from our collection of commercial-grade LED Christmas lights.