The Retail Sales Outlook Is Spooky This October According to Newest U.S. Retail Benchmarks Report From Euclid

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 12, 2014) - Euclid, the leader of in-store retail analytics, today releases its monthly retail benchmarks report to analyze shopper activity and behavior during the month of October. This month's report measured data from tens of millions of domestic shopping sessions to reveal that shopping activity rebounded slightly from September, but not enough to drive positive year-over-year sales growth. Traffic increased only marginally compared to last year, despite a much better macro-economic environment than last October, and repeat visits were down significantly. Bounce rates increased to levels not seen for a year as many shoppers lacked intent.

Euclid asserts that its metrics illustrate a cautious outlook for industry revenues, and estimates sales growth in the following retail verticals of:

• 5.7% decline year-over-year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other (GAFO) retail sales
• 0.9% growth year-over-year in clothing and apparel sales
• 2.7% decline year-over-year in general merchandise sales

Here are some of Euclid's top findings in this month's report around shopper behavior metrics:

• Shopper traffic increased three percent compared to the same month last year, but this was predominantly driven by easy comparisons to the government shutdown period in 2013
• Storefront conversion was up two percent year-over-year, benefitting from very robust Halloween shopping towards the end of the month
• Bounce rate increased one percent from last year. October saw the worst bounce rate since November 2013, a negative sign for sales during the month
• Repeat visits declined sharply after a rebound in September as many shoppers are waiting until the holiday season is in full swing to make return trips to the store

The best shopping day of October was Sunday the 19th. Outperformance was experienced across traffic, storefront conversion and visit duration. This day had the highest absolute duration for the month at 25.9 minutes. On the other hand, Friday the 24th was the worst shopping day of the month. Low duration coupled with abnormally high bounce rates marked this day and likely led to sales underperformance. Generally, the middle of the month saw the best shopping days, while the end of the month saw a drop off in activity.

To view the complete findings, download the full report on shopper activity for the month of October here: http://info.euclidanalytics.com/WC14-10USRB_Reg_RLP.html

About Euclid
Euclid provides answers and insights to brick and mortar retailers in the same way that web analytics services do for e-commerce. Euclid helps retailers quantify offline impact of marketing, optimize store performance, and understand customer behavior. As of October 2014 Euclid's network has grown to capture billions of measurements per day, analyzing hundreds of millions of potential shopping sessions per year across thousands of locations. Only anonymous, non-personal data is ever collected and only aggregated trend data is used for analysis.