ShopperTrak: August 2013

Shopper activity increased last month, in line with ShopperTrak’s predictions. Total retail store shopper traffic increased 11% this August compared to the previous month, which corresponds with recently reported positive month-over-month retail trends. In addition, shopper traffic for August 2013 increased slightly compared to the same month last year by 0.7%.



Back-to-school shopping drove this substantial traffic increase compared to last month. For this reason, August’s BTS shopping period remains the second most important shopping season of the year. During this period, parents equip their children with school supplies, clothes and electronics for the academic year. Retailers began to promote their BTS merchandise in late July, and these promotions continued throughout August.



Compared to last year at this time, retail store shopper traffic’s small increase is a positive indicator of shopper activity. The BTS season is relatively short at only one month. Since approximately 90% of retail sales still occur in brick-and-mortar stores, any gain — even a slight one — remains valuable to the economy.



“The back-to-school season caused shopper activity to increase significantly this past month,” said Bill Martin, ShopperTrak founder. “Although the month of September contains Labor Day, end-of-summer discounts offered by retailers will not offset the decline in shopper activity after Back to School. Therefore we expect shopper traffic to be down in September compared to August.”

ShopperTrak's data and analyses in this article are based on counting billions of shoppers in more than 60,000 locations across 90 countries. ShopperTrak counts more retail foot traffic than any other company in the world. The retail technology company collects and analyzes anonymous foot traffic, queue times and shopper demographics to identify revenue opportunities. Find out more at http://www.shoppertrak.com.