Retail Sales Are Heartbroken in February According to Newest U.S. Retail Benchmarks Report From Euclid Analytics

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 5, 2015) - Euclid Analytics, the leader of in-store retail analytics, today released its monthly retail benchmarks report that analyzed shopper activity and behavior during the month of February. This month's report measured data from tens of millions of domestic shopping sessions to reveal that shopping activity decreased compared to last year. Traffic declined year-over-year due to harsh weather across much of the country, and storefront conversion was negatively impacted by a less promotional environment. In-store engagement improved year-over-year with the help of Valentine's Day, but declined sequentially and failed to drive sales improvement.

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

• 2.3% decline year-over-year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other (GAFO) retail sales
• 3.6% decline year-over-year in clothing and apparel sales
• 1.1% 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 declined nearly one percent compared to the same month last year as the negative impact of harsh winter weather overshadowed increased Valentine's Day shopping activity
• Storefront conversion increased slightly year-over-year, but declined from January, as retailers were less promotional in February than recent months
• Duration increased fifteen percent from last year, but the extra minutes spent in the store did not consistently translate into improved sales
• Repeat visits increased slightly as Valentine's Day shopping drove a bump in return visits

The best shopping day of February was Sunday the 1st. The 1st experienced significantly higher traffic, storefront conversion, and average duration than last year. This day benefitted from Super Bowl Weekend activity and some early Valentine's Day shopping. On the other hand, Tuesday February 17th was the worst shopping day of the month. The 17th experienced the lower traffic and storefront conversion than any other day during the month. This day suffered from a lull after Valentine's Day and President's Day weekend.

To view the complete findings, download the full report on shopper activity for the month of February here: http://info.euclidanalytics.com/WC15-02USRB_Reg_RLP.html

About Euclid Analytics
Euclid Analytics 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 February 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. http://euclidanalytics.com