Placer.ai: Returns help boost mall visits in January
Open-air, indoor and outlet centers all saw visits increase year over year to start 2026.
Placer.ai’s Mall Index for January revealed that open-air shopping centers received the largest visit gains during the, with visits up 6.2% compared to January 2025. Indoor malls, which outperformed the other formats for much of 2025, also posted solid growth of 4.5%. Outlet centers saw a 3.6% increase in visits during January.
Placer.ai found that mall traffic was heavily front-loaded to the first two weeks of the year, consistent with the post-holiday returns window. The final week of January saw a more pronounced decline in traffic due to the impact of Winter Storm Fern, which weighed on visits across all mall formats
[READ MORE: Placer.ai: Retail visits spiked for two days ahead of Winter Storm Fern]
The Mall Index for January showed that the largest mall traffic gains were concentrated in short visits, with trips lasting 10 minutes or less increasing by double-digits across all mall formats, consistent with return trips. Indoor malls (27%) saw the largest increase in visits under 10 minutes, followed by outlet malls (21.1%) and open-air shopping centers (10.8%).
At the same time, the data also shows year-over-year growth in longer visits (more than 10 minutes), indicating that “higher-quality, more engaged” mall trips increased during the month as well.
“While post-holiday returns clearly played a role in driving January foot traffic, the simultaneous growth in longer trips suggests that shoppers were also spending time browsing or making additional purchases,” said Shira Petrack, head of content at Placer.ai.
