For marketers who are looking forward to having a positive holiday shopping season, there’s plenty of reason for optimism.
2021 Summer Foot Traffic Trends
With summer officially behind us, we review travel-related visitation trends during the three major summer holidays to better understand the rate of recovery across several consumer categories and what that means for the upcoming holiday season.
Let’s take a look at GroundTruth’s Foot Traffic Tracker data to see how many shoppers visited electronic stores, home improvement centers, retail locations, and restaurants this summer.
Labor Day
Labor Day Weekend generated strong visitation across all categories. Home improvement continued to trend higher among the three categories as consumers likely looked to take advantage of the summer weather to get last minute projects completed. Retail also saw a modest uptick as many families looked to get ready for the upcoming school year.
4th of July
4th of July Weekend showed a slight decrease in retail-related foot traffic as consumers took advantage of the warm weather to get outside instead. In fact, according to the Lean Report: Travel, visits to national parks rose 35% in July compared to typical levels.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day Weekend started the summer off strong with high rates of consistent foot traffic across all categories. Consumers were clearly ready to get out and enjoy the warm weather and prepare for the months to come by patronizing restaurant, home improvement, electronics, and retail locations.
Summer Foot Traffic Trends Inspire Positive Holiday Foot Traffic Projections
A positive summer foot traffic season and an overall improvement in foot traffic compared to 2020 is generating optimism for a strong holiday season in retail.
Industry forecasts predict a 7% to 9% increase in holiday retail sales (as compared to 2020) — totaling to up to $1.3 trillion during the November-January period. A stark difference to last year’s e-commerce trends, this year only 14% of U.S. shoppers say that they won’t be shopping in-store this holiday season.
Preparing your advertising plan for the upcoming holiday season? Consumer behavior changes as much as the seasons do. Don’t forget to winterize your advertising budget so you don’t miss out on any shoppers.
