ShopperTrak, which measures retail foot traffic and sales, took a middle position between the most and least optimistic estimates of holiday sales. Sales for November and December were down 4.4% compared to sales the year before, while store traffic was down 15%.
ShopperTrak’s assessment is bleaker than other reports that measure sales, including the National Retail Federation’s report yesterday that sales were down 2.8% from the year before, but not as bad as the U.S. Department of Commerce’s report of a 7.7% decline for the last three months of the year, including retail and food services but excluding gasoline and auto sales.
In comparison, comScore Inc. reports that online sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 23 were down 3%.
ShopperTrak’s number is based on a sample of more than 50,000 retail and enclosed mall locations throughout the United States. It is intended to measure retail sales as defined by the Commerce Department's so-called GAFO designation—general merchandise, apparel, furniture, sporting goods, electronics, hobby, books and other related store sales. It excludes auto sales, gasoline station sales and restaurant sales.
ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate reports November sales fell 4.3% vs. a year earlier and December, 4.5%, marking four consecutive months of year-over-year declines in retail sales. October sales fell 1.4% while September sales dropped 2% versus 2007.
“The fact that the holiday shopping season didn’t provide the annual relief retailers were hoping for, yet continued the trend of declining sales for the fourth consecutive month, is significant for the industry heading into what will most likely be a tumultuous Q1 in 2009,” says Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak.
Sales on the day after Thanksgiving were up 3% over the day after Thanksgiving a year earlier, but the increase didn’t carry through the weekend, when Saturday’s sales were down 0.8% and Sunday’s sales down 2.3%.
Stores, in fact, were emptying out over that weekend, ShopperTrak says, with foot traffic on Friday down 18.1% from a year earlier, Saturday, down 16.8%, and Sunday, down 23.1%.
Even the last weekend before Christmas, which is usually a busy period, fell far short this year, according to ShopperTrak. Foot traffic that weekend fell 23.7% compared to the same weekend in 2007, while retail sales fell 5%.
“This holiday season we truly saw an efficient consumer who planned trips to retail locations around deeply discounted items via door buster sales and other promotions throughout the shopping period,” Martin says. “So while shoppers did spend during the season, our data suggests most activity occurred during the heaviest discounted periods like Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and later in the year on Super Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas) and the days leading up to Christmas, ultimately negatively impacting the bottom line.”
Based on holiday season performance and the state of the economy, ShopperTrak now predicts a 16.4% decline in foot traffic with a 4% drop in GAFO retail sales in the first quarter.
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