Retail stores still important for holiday shopping experience

Press Release

Retail stores still important for holiday shopping experience

December 03, 2018

Traffic Insights

In-store shopper numbers for Black Friday week saw year-over-year improvement

NEUHAUSEN, Switzerland—(November 27, 2018)— ShopperTrak, a Tyco Retail Solutions’ brand, today released a more comprehensive report of shopper behavior during 2018 Black Friday week through the busy weekend, the period spanning from Sunday, Nov. 18 to Sunday, Nov. 25. For the analysis, ShopperTrak compared daily store traffic versus the same days last year.

ShopperTrak found that store traffic for the Black Friday week in total resulted in a 1.2 percent decrease vs. last year. But this decline represents an improvement from 2017 when traffic was down 2.3 percent. Black Friday weekend 2018 (Thursday, Nov. 22 to Sunday, Nov. 25) declined only 1.5 percent this year, compared to a 2.2 percent decline in 2017. With online shopping increasing and the early holiday store traffic trends starting to improve over previous years, the relevance of the store for the customer shopping experience is becoming evident. Black Friday festive store shopping is still important for today’s consumers.

“Overall, this year’s minor decrease in shopper visit performance indicates that Black Friday still remains one of the busiest in-store shopping days of the year and traffic is stabilizing from previous years,” said Brian Field, senior director of global retail consulting for ShopperTrak.

ShopperTrak also looked at the effect of Cyber Monday on brick-and-mortar retail traffic on Monday and found that this year’s traffic was down 7 percent. This is a larger decrease than in 2017, when Cyber Monday was down 2 percent and more in line with that year’s holiday weekend results.

“While most of the country is back at work and wouldn’t be shopping significantly in-stores on Monday, the difference between this year’s results and last year’s is surprising. Some of this could have been due to weather issues on Sunday and Monday as well as the lure of Cyber Monday. Regardless, consumers enjoyed their in-store shopping experience over the holiday weekend,” added Field. “Customers are finding their balance between in-store and online shopping strategies, and it will be important for retailers to be prepared for the remaining busiest days in order to compete against online.”

For more information on the 2018 top ten busiest shopping days and holiday shopping trends, visit the ShopperTrak blog, here.

About Johnson Controls

At Johnson Controls, we transform the environments where people live, work, learn and play. From optimizing building performance to improving safety and enhancing comfort, we drive the outcomes that matter most. We deliver our promise in industries such as healthcare, education, data centers and manufacturing. With a global team of 105,000 experts in more than 150 countries and over 130 years of innovation, we are the power behind our customers’ mission. Our leading portfolio of building technology and solutions includes some of the most trusted names in the industry, such as Tyco^®, York^®, Metasys^®, Ruskin^®, Titus^®, Frick^®, Penn^®, Sabroe^®, Simplex^®, Ansul^® and Grinnell^®. For more information, visit www.johnsoncontrols.com or follow @johnsoncontrols on Twitter.

About Sensormatic Solutions

Sensormatic Solutions is the leading global retail solutions portfolio of Johnson Controls enabling smart and connected shopper engagement. By combining critical insights into retail inventory, shopper traffic and loss prevention, Sensormatic Solutions powers operational excellence at scale and helps create unique shopping experiences. Our solutions deliver real-time visibility and predictive analytics for accurate decision-making across the enterprise, enabling retailers to confidently move into the future. With more than 1.5 million data collection devices in the retail marketplace, we capture 40 billion shopper visits and track and protect billions of items each year. Our retail portfolio features the premier Sensormatic, ShopperTrak and TrueVUE brands. Please visit www.sensormatic.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and our YouTube channel.