Retail Sales Had Frostbite in January According to Newest U.S. Retail Benchmarks Report From Euclid

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Feb 6, 2015) - 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 January. This month's report measured data from tens of millions of domestic shopping sessions to reveal that shopping activity decreased meaningfully compared to last year. Traffic dropped year-over-year as the shift towards online shopping accelerated and was amplified further by harsh weather across much of the country. In-store engagement improved more than expected during the low traffic, post-holiday month, but it is unclear how much the longer visits benefitted sales.

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

• 1.3% decline year-over-year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other (GAFO) retail sales
• 1.7% growth year-over-year in clothing and apparel sales
• Flat 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 declined seven percent compared to the same month last year as harsh winter storms amplified the shift of shopping to online and mobile
• Storefront conversion was up one percent year-over-year, but down significantly from December as the holiday and post-holiday promotions died down
• Duration increased fourteen percent from last year, but the extra minutes spent in the store did not translate into additional dollars spent by consumers
• Repeat visits decreased less than a percent, driven by bad weather and a hangover from a busy holiday season

The best shopping day of January was Saturday the 10th. The 10th saw significantly more traffic and higher storefront conversion than the same day of the month last year. Shoppers spent more time in the store on average and bounced less than most other days in January. The results were likely buoyed by lingering holiday gift card spending. On the other hand, Friday, January 9th was the worst shopping day of the month. Traffic and repeat ratio suffered on this day, despite high levels of activity during the days surrounding it. In addition, visits were generally short and lacked intent on this day.

To view the complete findings, download the full report on shopper activity for the month of January here: http://info.euclidanalytics.com/WC15-01USRB_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 January 2015 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.