By Richa Naidu

CHICAGO (Reuters – Shopper foot traffic grew at Target (NYSE 🙂 in the most recent holiday season, compared to two-years earlier. Visits to Walmart (NYSE 🙂 and Best Buy According to data compiled exclusively by Reuters, stores saw a decline in overall sales from November 1 through December 25.

Investors could use the store data to identify winners and losers in a holiday season marred by the coronavirus pandemic, inventory shortages due to a supply chain jamm, or other factors such as a stock market crash.

According to Placer.ai (a research company that anonymizes location data collected from over 30 million devices in the US), Target’s holiday traffic rose 6.2% compared to two years ago. The data indicates that traffic at rivals Walmart Inc. and Best Buy Co Inc. (NYSE:) declined by 0.1% compared to 11.5% respectively.

For a related graphic on early shopping, Covid-19 fears hurt holiday traffic, click https://graphics.reuters.com/RETAIL-HOLIDAYSHOPPING/USA/byprjmlrype/chart.png

Target, Walmart, and Best Buy did not comment.

The 2021 holiday season saw shoppers shop earlier in November-December, which also caused traffic to drop.

Marshal Cohen, NPD Group’s head retail analyst, said traffic data is helpful to understand whether people are going to stores and making so-called impulse purchases that account for roughly 25% of retailers’ holiday sales.

Still, Cohen said that people worried about COVID-19 have changed the way they shop, increasingly going online which is “a challenge” for some retailers.

According to Refinitiv I/B/E/S, Target’s holiday quarter sales are expected to rise by more than a third versus 2019, while Walmart’s revenue is forecast to rise by about 7% and Best Buy sales are expected rise by about 10%.

Placer.ai.com reports that Target Store Traffic increased throughout the country, save Hawaii and Washington D.C. Footfall in Idaho and Vermont grew nearly 24% compared to 2019.

For a related graphic on Target holiday foot traffic jumps across the country, click https://graphics.reuters.com/RETAIL-HOLIDAYSHOPPING/USA/dwpkrkdddvm/chart.png

Despite Target’s strong holiday season traffic, the retailer’s fourth-quarter profit margin is expected to narrow to 25.35% from 27.10% two years ago, due in part to supply-chain logjams.

WHERE ARE PEOPLE SHOPPED?

Walmart traffic declined in 20 states – mostly coastal areas, with the retailer harder hit in Florida, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. The retailer saw higher sales in some parts of the country with customers visiting its stores in both the midwest and south.

For a related graphic on, click https://graphics.reuters.com/RETAIL-HOLIDAYSHOPPING/USA/akvezeqqwpr/chart.png

Best Buy’s footfall fell in all but four U.S. states during the period. Analysts believe that the electronics retailer could not source enough products (including TVs and consoles) due to a worldwide chip shortage.

For a related graphic, click https://graphics.reuters.com/RETAIL-HOLIDAYSHOPPING/USA/akpezeqwjvr/chart.png

The trends in sales are often not reflected by traffic. “It’s very hard to draw a straight line between store traffic and total sales and retail,” said John Mercer, advisory firm Coresight Research’s head of global research.

Sensormatic data showed that foot traffic at U.S. retail stores decreased from November 1 through December 25, as compared to the previous weeks of pre-pandemic 2019.

“Ever since the COVID lifestyle began, Target has pretty much led the way,” Cohen said. “They’ve had fewer out-of-stocks; they were aggressive with promotions even when Amazon (NASDAQ:) minimized them; they invested in private-label merchandise; they’ve been a leader in curbside and buy-online-pick-up-in-store.”