Placer.ai: Wholesale clubs see visits rise to start 2025
Wholesale clubs and superstores saw notable traffic increases during the month of January.
New data from retail foot traffic firm Placer.ai revealed that Costco Wholesale Club (7.7%), BJ’s Wholesale Club (7.4%) and Sam’s Club (4.7%) all saw visits rise to start the new year. Meanwhile, Target (3.6%) and Walmart (3.0%) also saw visits increase in January.
Placer.ai’s data shows that the wholesale sector has entered 2025 on a hot streak. With the exception of December, visits to Costco, BJ’s and Sam’s Club have increased year-over-year every month since last July. For all of 2024, visits to Costco (7.2%), BJ’s (6.0%) and Sam’s Club (4.8%) increased over 2023. Walmart (1.1%) and Target (0.0%) saw much more muted year-over-year growth, if any, last year.
[READ MORE: Placer.ai: Q4 foot traffic was strongest in these retail sectors…]
Placer.ai noted that Target and Walmart each attract a different consumer. Those who frequent Target tend to have a higher median household income ($83,000) compared to Walmart ($64,500), and are more likely to be from the suburban and urban periphery cities. Walmart shoppers are more likely to come from rural and semirural areas.
The two chains’ visitor base also exhibit differences in in-store behavior. Walmart visitors stay slightly longer in store, with 20.7% of the chain’s visits lasting longer than 45 minutes compared to Target’s 17.1%, which Placer.ai notes may be due to the mission-driven shopping behavior of some of its rural and semirural customer base. Despite the longer visits, Walmart still receives a larger share of weekday visits than Target, which the firm says could be due to its larger share of single shoppers with fewer weekday commitments.
