Overall retail visits increased year-over-year (YoY) for most months of 2024, reported research firm Placer.ai in its 2024 Retail Foot Traffic Recap. Visits were up 0.4%, and 2024 as a whole “outperformed” 2023, it said.
Months with visit decreases are “likely due to extraneous circumstances as opposed to any real consumer slowdown,” the firm said.
“Last year’s largest YoY retail visit gap—in January 2024—could be attributed to severe winter weather in large parts of the country. And the April, September and December YoY visit dips are likely partially due to calendar shifts, with April 2024 affected by the Easter calendar shift and September and December disadvantaged by having one less Saturday than in 2023,” according to the report.
Diving deeper into the data reveals significant variation among the major retail categories, said Placer.ai. “Discount & dollar stores (2.8% YoY growth) and superstores (1.7% YoY growth) came out ahead of the pack, highlighting consumers’ demand for value in the face of high prices and economic uncertainty.”
Many discretionary retail categories “lagged” in 2024. The Furniture & Home Furnishings category saw the steepest decline with negative visit trends from January to July 2024, but the category did finish strong with a 3.5% YoY increase in Q4 2024 visits, according to the report.
Last year’s retail foot traffic gains were also uneven across regions, wrote Placer.ai.
While most states saw modest YoY visit growth, Maine (2.2%) and North Dakota (2.0%) topped the list in 2024. Notably, foot traffic in both states “showed resilience” during the most challenging periods of the year.
“In Maine, a recent increase in inbound domestic migration may have contributed to the state’s foot traffic success. Meanwhile, North Dakota’s large share of superstore and discount & dollar store traffic was likely behind its overall retail visit growth in 2024,” wrote Placer.ai.
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