News

December shopping activity up from November, but down from last year

Although traffic dropped year-over-year as the shift toward online shopping accelerated, it was buoyed by a highly promotional month.

January 8, 2015

In-store analytics firm Euclid has released its monthly retail benchmarks report to analyze shopper activity and behavior during the month of December. This month's report measured data from tens of millions of domestic shopping sessions to reveal that shopping activity increased dramatically from November, but declined compared to last year, the company said. Although traffic dropped year-over-year as the shift toward online shopping accelerated, it was buoyed by a highly promotional month. In-store engagement improved remarkably for the busiest shopping month of the year, with average duration up and bounce rate at a three-month low.

Euclid said that its metrics illustrate a slightly positive outlook for industry revenues, and estimates sales growth in the following retail verticals of:

• 0.6-percent growth year-over-year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other retail sales
• 1.2-percent growth year-over-year in clothing and apparel sales
• 1.5-percent decline year-over-year in general merchandise sales

Here are some of Euclid's top findings in this month's report around shopper behavior metrics:

• Shopper traffic declined 5 percent compared to the same month last year as online and mobile shopping continued to cannibalize store visits.
• Storefront conversion was up 2 percent year-over-year, benefiting from highly targeted shopping driven by attractive promotions.
• Duration increased 12 percent from last year as improving consumer sentiment, declining gasoline prices and multiyear lows in unemployment boosted consumers desire to spend.

The best shopping day of December was Friday the 26th, the day after Christmas. The 26th saw significantly more traffic, higher storefront conversion and higher levels of engagement compared to last year. The results were driven by heavily advertised post-Christmas promotions and robust holiday gift card spending. On the other hand, Cyber Monday, Dec. 1, was the worst shopping day of the month. Traffic and repeat ratio suffered from a Black Friday weekend hangover, while shoppers turned their attention to e-commerce deals.

Holiday season traffic was slightly weaker than expected, declining more than 10 percent year-over-year. However, storefront conversion increased 2 percent compared to last year as each trip to the mall became more focused. Bounce rates continued to decline and average visit durations increased 12 percent as shoppers showed a strong willingness to spend discretionary income amidst a favorable economic environment.