ShopperTrak Mother's Day Analysis
22/04/2010 08:44:10 AM
By Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak
With the annually strong Mother’s Day holiday approaching, we decided to take a quick look at our data to determine the top performing retail periods each year. After analyzing the data from 50,000+ sensors in retail environments throughout the country, it was no surprise the Nov./Dec. holiday season was the top performing period. But interestingly our data shows the August “back-to-school” period is consistently the next strongest period for retailers, as there are many more trips based on “back to school” as compared to Mother’s Day. In fact, we find the next best performing holiday behind the Nov./Dec. period was actually Valentine’s Day in 2009.
Digging a little deeper, Mother’s Day is a very focused event, essentially comprised of one week of shopping. Back to school spending, on the other hand, lasts several weeks, much like the holidays. And while there are other significant retail events occurring in May around Mother’s Day (Memorial Day, college graduations), May doesn’t stack up to August and back to school in terms of retail sales and enclosed mall traffic:
· August 2009 NRSE GAFO retail sales = $95 billion, third highest after November and December.
· May 2009 NRSE GAFO retail sales = $93 billion, fourth after the above three months.
· Total U.S. foot traffic for August 2009 was tied with November for the second highest traffic month after December 2009.
· Total U.S. foot traffic for May 2009 was in the sixth highest traffic month.
· Total U.S. foot traffic during each week in August 2009 was above the week preceding Mother’s Day 2009, the period where retailers see the most spending for Mother’s Day.
· Total U.S. foot traffic for 2009 Valentine’s Day week (week ending 2/14/2009) was higher than the week preceding Mother’s Day.
Please contact Aaron Martin (amartin@sphillips.com) anytime if you’d like further comment or additional details regarding our Mother’s Day analysis.
