Placer.ai: Indoor malls, open-air centers see visits rise in 2024
Visits to malls decreased year-over-year in December, but that didn’t stop the sector overall from having a strong 2024.
According to retail traffic firm Placer.ai’s newest Mall Index for December, overall visits in 2024 to indoor malls and open-air shopping centers exceeded 2023 levels with year-over-year increases of 1.5% and 1.7%, respectively. Foot traffic to outlet malls, which tend to attract lower-income shoppers, remained essentially flat compared to 2023 (-0.4%).
In December, all three mall segments saw a decrease in visits compared to the same month last year, with outlet malls seeing the greatest dip (-1.6%), followed by open-air shopping centers (-0.7%) and indoor malls (-0.2%). The decreases come on the heels of a strong November, when Black Friday weekend drove mall visit increases for all three segments.
“The 2024 traffic performance of each format may be correlated with the income levels of the format’s visitor base,” said Shira Petrack, content manager at Placer.ai. “Open-air shopping centers, which received the largest year-over-year visit boost, also attracted the most affluent visitors who were likely less impacted by the ongoing consumer headwinds. Meanwhile outlet malls, which saw slight year-over-year traffic dips, drew visitors from areas with the lowest household income.”
[READ MORE: Placer.ai: Department stores, specialty retailers had strongest Super Saturday performance]
Placer.ai’s data shows that holiday shopping unsurprisingly played a key role in increasing mall traffic. Between Black Friday and New Year’s Eve, visits increased 59.3% at outlet malls, 57% at indoor malls, and 31.4% at open-air shopping centers when compared to the rest of the year. However, the increase in average daily visits during the holiday season was greater on weekdays than on the weekends.
Dwell time at malls also tends to be longer between Black Friday and New Years Eve when compared to the rest of the year. Visit length at indoor and outlet malls increased by an average of 4.7 minutes, while dwell time at open-air shopping centers grew by an average of 3.1 minutes.
Placer.ai’s Mall Index analyzes data from 100 top-tier indoor malls, 100 open-air shopping centers (not including outlet malls) and 100 outlet malls across the country, in both urban and suburban areas. Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the country.
