Thursday, December 27, 2012

Report: last-minute retail sales, foot traffic down


Last-minute shopping activity drove large increases in retail sales and foot traffic last week, but both sales and foot traffic were down compared to last year, says a retail report released Thursday. 

The data, known as the ShopperTrak National Retail Sales Estimate, reported that for the week ending Dec. 22, sales increase more than 39 percent and traffic increase 32 percent compared to the previous week. 

But retail sales were down 2.5 percent and foot traffic was down 3.3 percent, compared to the same week last year. 

Dec. 22 was the second-busiest retail sales and foot traffic day of the year, behind Black Friday (Nov. 23). 

ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based retail technology company that measures foot traffic in more than 50,000 locations globally, forecasts that day-after-Christmas sales won't be as strong as last year because of the day of the week. 

Last year, Dec. 26 fell on a Monday. This year, it was a Wednesday. 

"Many people were back at work, not in stores," says ShopperTrak founder Bill Martin in a statement.  

ShopperTrak will release its retail sales and foot traffic numbers for the week ending Dec. 29 during its holiday wrap-up news on Jan. 8.

The U.S. Department of Commerce will release its December numbers in February. 


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

thats a lie, apparently they didnt take this survey to any store i went to this past week because everyone and their momma was there!!!!! it was horrible.... FYI i spent 700 in walmart black friday yet only paid 350!! everything i bought on sale that night was fifty percent off, beat that! it pays to go out on black friday, i was in walmart a total of 3 hours it wasnt bad at all!!!!

Anonymous said...

The survey obviously didn't include gun shops.

Sarah said...

I was amazed at how few people were actually shopping right after Christmas, despite the sales. I did notice quite a few people returning stuff. I wonder if online shopping is taking over.