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Department stores across the country have been evolving to meet changing consumer wants and needs, and Macy’s & Bloomingdale’s are no exception. Owned by the same company – Macy’s, Inc – these two brands have been recalibrating their store fleets and experimenting with new formats.
We took a closer look at visitation trends to both brands to understand how they diverge, analyze their respective strengths, and explore what might be ahead for both.
In recent years, Macy’s, Inc. has focused on optimizing its store fleet, a long-running project that gained momentum with the 2023 appointment of former Bloomingdale’s executive Tony Spring as CEO. This change coincided with a turnaround strategy involving the closing of some 30% of the brand’s traditional department stores; the expansion of Macy’s small-format model; and the addition of more Bloomingdale’s locations.
And a look at foot traffic trends at Bloomingdale’s shows that the high-end brand is indeed experiencing an uptick in demand, making it ripe for expansion. For much of the period between January and July 2024, Bloomingdale’s saw YoY monthly visit increases, with only January, April, and July seeing YoY declines. January’s drop was likely due to the inclement weather that weighed on retailers nationwide, while the April 2024 YoY downturn may have been due in part to the comparison to an April 2023 that had five weekends. And though July 2024 as a whole saw visits down 1.5% YoY, a look at weekly foot traffic to Bloomingdale’s shows that throughout most of that month and into August, the chain continued to draw more visits than in 2023.
Macy’s, for its part, had a slower start to 2024 – with YoY monthly visits down through April 2024. But in May and June, Macy’s visit gap closed, with foot traffic just above 2023 levels. And though Macy’s also saw monthly YoY visits decline in July, the chain’s weekly foot traffic has remained at or above 2023 levels since the middle of the month – likely spurred by back-to-school shopping and sales.
With the upcoming holiday season expected to bring a surge in foot traffic, both Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s are well-positioned to capitalize on these opportunities and potentially drive further growth.
Analyzing the median household incomes (HHI) of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s captured markets shows how Macy’s, Inc.’s revitalization strategy is helping the company further diversify the range of options available for shoppers of all kinds underneath its umbrella.
Between January and July 2024, for example, luxury-focused Bloomingdale’s attracted visitors from areas with the highest median HHI of the three brands – $122.2K, well above the nationwide average of $76.1K. Bloomingdale’s affluent audience may be less prone to inflation-driven cutbacks than the average American, contributing to the chain’s stronger positioning this year.
By contrast, Macy’s shoppers came from areas with a median HHI of $82.4K, while visitors to Macy’s small-format stores (some 13 locations nationwide) came from areas with a median HHI of $78.5K – just above the nationwide baseline. By expanding its small-format footprint, Macy’s may succeed at increasing its draw among more average-income shoppers.
This income variation underscores the broad retail potential of each chain, ensuring that consumers can find options that cater to their specific needs across Macy’s diverse offerings.
Analyzing the psychographic characteristics of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s captured markets can shed additional light on how the chain’s turnaround strategy may help it reach new audiences. Macy’s traditional department stores already draw a diverse mix of consumers. But the addition of new Bloomingdale’s locations will help the company make further inroads into affluent segment groups like “Ultra Wealthy Families” – which makes up a whopping 32.0% of Bloomingdale’s captured market. At the same time, Macy’s smaller-format stores will offer the company greater access to the more modest-income “City Hopefuls” and “Near-Urban Diverse Families”, as well as the upper-middle-class “Upper Suburban Diverse Families”.
Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s continue to adapt to shifting consumer preferences by focusing on their strengths in specific markets and among their demographic segments, and by expanding its small-format stores. With the holiday season approaching, can both chains continue to drive visits?
Visit Placer.ai to keep on top of the latest data-driven retail news.
Summer 2024 has seen fierce competition among fast food and dining chains, with many embracing limited-time offers (LTOs) to attract customers and drive visits. As restaurant price wars continue unabated, these promotions are proving crucial in keeping consumer interest alive.
We dove into the visit performance of four brands – McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Smoothie King – to see how their LTOs are driving visits.
On June 25th, 2024, McDonald’s launched a limited-time offer, allowing customers to purchase a McDouble or McChicken, a 4-piece Chicken McNuggets, small fries, and a small soft drink for just $5. Originally intended to run for about a month, the promotion was so successful that it was extended through August. Foot traffic began to trend upwards following the promotion’s launch, with visits during the week of June 24th up 2.5% compared to the chain’s weekly average between April 1st and August 5th. And foot traffic to McDonald’s has remained consistently elevated in the weeks since.
Like McDonald’s, Burger King has also been leaning into value-driven promotions, launching the "$5 Your Way" value meal on June 10th, 2024. And the promotion seems to be driving visits in a significant way. While weekly YoY visits to the chain have fluctuated throughout 2024, they jumped 3.8% YoY during the week of June 10th, and have remained consistently elevated since. Burger King, recognizing the power of the value meal, has chosen to keep the special running until October.
And following its recent rightsizing efforts, Burger King isn’t resting on its laurels. Building on the success of its $5 value meal, the chain also launched a limited-time, extra-spicy menu update on July 18th. This new offering appears to have helped keep visits elevated: After waning slightly during the week of July 8th, foot traffic to Burger King picked up once again during the week of the launch.
Tex-Mex favorite Taco Bell kicked off the 20th anniversary of its popular lime-flavored drink, Baja Blast, with a special "Bajaversary" promotion on July 29th, 2024, offering free drinks and freezes both in-store and on the app. The deal seems to have resonated strongly with customers, with visits growing by 12.3% year-over-year (YoY) for the week of July 29th. Daily visits also experienced a major increase – on the day of the special, visits surged by 17.1% compared to the YTD Monday visit average and were 5.9% higher than the overall YTD visit average.
The Summer Olympics were a major event, with millions of viewers tuning in to watch athletes at their best. And many fast food chains jumped on the Olympics bandwagon, offering discounts, deals, and limited-time menu items inspired by the event.
Smoothie King, known for its health-focused beverages, was one such brand with an Olympics special. The chain offered 32-oz smoothies for just $5 on Friday, July 26th, 2024, to coincide with the Olympic kickoff. The deal ran for one day only and fueled a significant foot traffic boost. Visits to Smoothie King on July 26th were 22.9% higher than the YTD Friday visit average – highlighting the effectiveness of well-timed, event-based offers.
For now at least, it seems that LTOs – particularly those focused on offering diners more bang for their buck – are reigning supreme in the fast-food space.
Will these promotions continue to drive foot traffic and maintain customer engagement?
Visit Placer.ai for the latest data-driven dining news.
With Q3 2024 underway, we checked in with beauty chains Ulta Beauty and Sally Beauty Supply, owned by Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. How did they fare in the first half of the year? And what are some of the factors driving their success?
We dove into the data to find out.
Ulta Beauty thrived in 2022 and 2023, propelled by the lipstick effect – which sees consumers splurging on low-cost indulgences when times are tight – and by the post-pandemic consumer obsession with wellness. And though the beauty giant’s visit growth has moderated somewhat in recent months, it continues to see year-over-year (YoY) foot traffic growth.
Between January and July 2024, Ulta consistently outperformed the wider beauty segment, with monthly YoY visit increases ranging between 2.8% and 11.2%. On a quarterly basis, visits to the chain jumped 6.6% YoY in Q2 2024. Though some of Ulta’s visit growth can be attributed to the chain’s growing store count, the average number of visits to each Ulta location also increased 4.6% YoY in Q2 2024.
Sally Beauty Supply – the hair care-oriented beauty chain with more than 3,100 stores nationwide – is another beauty brand to watch this year. In 2022, Sally Beauty announced a store optimization plan that included the shuttering of more than 300 stores. And foot traffic data shows that the chain’s rightsizing efforts are paying off.
Comparing quarterly visits to Sally Beauty to a Q2 2022 baseline shows that after declining throughout 2023, overall visits to the chain have begun to pick up once again – with Q2 2024 foot traffic up 3.6%.
One factor that appears to be driving success for both Ulta and Sally Beauty is their unusually broad appeal. Analyzing the two chains’ captured markets with data from Spatial.ai’s PersonaLive and STI: PopStats shows that though there are differences between Ulta and Sally Beauty’s captured markets, both brands draw large shares of customers from across demographic groups.
Overall, the median household income of Ulta’s captured market is higher than that of Sally Beauty – $78.6K, compared to $67.1K. Ulta’s distinct mix of prestige and budget products is especially likely to draw Wealthy Suburban Families, while Sally Beauty’s offerings hold special appeal for Small Towns.
But both brands’ captured markets include higher-than-average shares of the Blue Collar Suburbs and Near-Urban Diverse Families segment groups – showing that despite their differences, Ulta and Sally Beauty both boast diverse customer bases.
Still, visitors interact with the two beauty chains differently. During the 12-month period ending in July 2024, some 32.1% of visits to Sally Beauty lasted less than 10 minutes – compared to just 15.3% of visits to Ulta.
Sally Beauty’s far greater share of visits under ten minutes may be partly a result of its hair-focused product mix. In Q2 2024, some 64.8% of Sally Beauty’s net sales were in the hair color and care segments, while just 8.1% were in skincare and cosmetics. Ulta’s offerings, by contrast, are very much centered on cosmetics. And while shoppers buying hair care products may be more likely to take advantage of options like BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), those on the hunt for makeup may be more intent on trying out products and browsing in-store. Beauty professionals, who make up a larger share of Sally Beauty’s customer base than that of Ulta’s, may also be more inclined to use this service.
On the flip side, Ulta drew a much higher share of extended visits (30+ minutes) during the analyzed period – 31.8%, compared to 20.7% for Sally Beauty. In addition to browsing the aisles and trying new products, many Ulta customers likely remain longer in-store to avail themselves of the chain’s varied in-store salon services.
Ulta and Sally Beauty have different offerings – and serve different customer bases. But the success and broad appeal of both brands shows that in the beauty space of 2024, there’s plenty of room at the top.
For more data-driven insights, visit Placer.ai.
Discount & dollar stores had a strong Q2 2024, as consumers continued to prioritize value amid persistent high prices. We dove into the data for category leaders Dollar General and Dollar Tree to take a closer look at the drivers of these chains’ most recent success.
Dollar General – the nation’s largest dollar store player – opened nearly 200 stores last quarter, surpassing 20,000 U.S. locations. And Dollar Tree, the second-biggest dollar store chain by real estate footprint, stands at over 8,300 locations, including more than 100 new additions in the first months of 2024.
These chains’ significant fleet expansions continue to fuel foot traffic growth. Both Dollar General and Dollar Tree saw consistently positive YoY visit growth during the first seven months of 2024. Only in April 2024 did Dollar Tree’s YoY foot traffic appear to falter, likely as a result of decreased YoY demand for its traditional holiday merch due to an Easter calendar shift.
On a quarterly basis, YoY visits to Dollar General and Dollar Tree in Q2 2024 rose 13.1% and 8.4%, respectively. Over the same period, the two chains also experienced YoY increases in the average number of visits to each of their locations (10.3% for Dollar General and 3.7% for Dollar Tree), indicating that visits to individual stores remained robust as the brands grew.
And both brands plan on continuing to expand in the near future. Dollar General expects to open a total of 730 new stores in 2024, while Dollar Tree announced the takeover of 170 99 Cents Only Stores to complement the banner’s other openings. These strategic initiatives should continue to drive foot traffic gains for both brands in the coming months.
What’s behind Dollar General and Dollar Tree’s visit success? A look at changes in visitor interaction with the two chains suggests that for both dollar leaders, rising customer loyalty has played an important role.
Since July 2022, the share of visitors frequenting the two brands on a regular basis has been on an upward trajectory. In July 2024, 35.5% of Dollar General visitors frequented the chain at least three times during the month – up from 34.1% in July 2022. This increase in visitor frequency may be due in part to Dollar General’s inroads into the grocery space – giving consumers even more of a reason to visit the chain for daily essentials on a regular basis.
And though Dollar Tree’s somewhat more modest fleet drives a slightly smaller share of repeat visitors, it too has seen an increase in frequent visitors while investing in diversified offerings at various price-points – including consumables. In July 2024, 16.6% of Dollar Tree’s visitors also visited the chain at least three times, up from 13.9% in July 2022.
For both chains, visitor frequency is driven in part by seasonality, with loyalty upticks in December and May, likely driven by holiday season and Mother’s Day shoppers. Still, Dollar Tree, which remains a more traditional dollar store than Dollar General, experiences more dramatic seasonal visit peaks than its prime competitor – and its loyalty also follows a more pronounced seasonal pattern.
With the biggest players in the discount & dollar category seemingly going strong, will the second half of 2024 bring even more success to this retail space?
Visit Placer.ai to find out.
Midway through 2024, foot traffic to Lowe’s and Home Depot – the leaders in the home improvement space – is climbing. What’s driving these retailers’ recent visit growth? We dove into the data to find out.
After a meteoric rise in foot traffic during the pandemic, the home improvement segment has experienced a turbulent few years – one of the primary reasons being a cool housing market that has curbed demand for projects. But after a significant period of consistent YoY visit gaps, visits to Lowe’s and Home Depot in 2024 appear to be matching and even slightly surpassing 2023 levels.
Between Q3 2023 and Q2 2024, Lowe’s and Home Depot both saw their YoY visit gaps gradually narrow and then close – finishing out Q2 with modest YoY gains. This turnaround may have been partly due to modest lifts in new home sales at the start of 2024 compared to 2023 – spurring an uptick in home improvement projects in the following months.
And though YoY visits to both retailers experienced a decline in July 2024 – perhaps due to May and June’s YoY declines in new and existing home sales – recent indications that the housing market may be heating up may bode well for the home improvement category in the second half of 2024 and beyond.
In addition to an increase in YoY visits, the resurgence of cross-shopping behavior between Home Depot and Lowe’s further suggests that a turnaround may be unfolding in the home improvement space. Location analytics shows that during recent home improvement booms, cross shopping between the two retailers was common, perhaps as judicious consumers taking on large projects looked to explore their options.
In Q2 of 2020 and 2021 – periods of strong foot traffic for both retailers – a large share of Lowe’s visitors also visited Home Depot. And although Lowe’s maintains a smaller retail footprint than Home Depot, many of Home Depot’s visitors visited a Lowe’s store as well.
But in the years that followed, economic headwinds led many consumers to defer their projects, and cross-shopping behavior began to moderate. In Q2 2023, only 48.8% of visitors to Lowe’s also visited Home Depot, and just 44.8% of Home Depot’s visitors visited Lowe’s.
However, in Q2 2024, consumers’ home improvement cross-shopping showed signs of a potential change of course. During the period, cross shopping between the brands climbed to 51.5% for Lowe’s and 45.7% for Home Depot. A return to in-store comparison shopping could mean that consumers are again taking on higher-stakes home improvement projects, which justify a visit to both retailers.
After an extended period of YoY visit gaps, foot traffic to the home improvement leaders is on the rise. Will Lowe’s and Home Depot continue to build on these positive visitation trends?
Visit Placer.ai to find out.
With H2 2024 underway, we took a look at the foot traffic performance of superstores Walmart and Target, and membership warehouse clubs BJ’s Wholesale Club, Sam’s Club, and Costco. How did foot traffic compare to 2023’s visitation patterns? And what special events helped propel visits?
Superstores have been thriving – with YoY visits to retail giants Walmart and Target elevated consistently since May 2024. And though Target had a slower start to the year, YoY foot traffic to the chain picked up in Q2, and the retailer has been flourishing since. (Target and Walmart's April 2024 YoY foot traffic drops are likely attributable in part to calendar shifts: April 2023 had one more weekend than April 2024 – and one of them was Easter.)
Membership warehouse clubs have been faring even better, with Costco leading the pack in Q2. BJ’s and Sam’s Club also experienced strong visit growth, with July visits elevated by 5.6% YoY for both brands.
A closer look at the baseline change in quarterly visits since Q2 2019 further highlights the strong positioning of superstores and wholesale clubs in 2024. All five retailers drew more visits in Q2 2024 than they did pre-pandemic (Q2 2019).
But these visit increases have not been equally distributed across the retailers: While all of them experienced growth relative to a Q2 2019 baseline, membership warehouse visits have been outpacing those of superstores on a consistent basis since Q1 2023. As prime destinations for inexpensive, bulk buying, the segment has likely been buoyed by families and younger consumers seeking ways to save money on groceries and other basics amid high prices.
But superstores have also been having a moment. And one factor which may have contributed to Target’s Q2 2024 turnaround is its doubling down on loyalty: In April 2024, the chain revamped its Target Circle Rewards, adding, among other things, a new paid tier called Target Circle 360.
A key benefit of Target’s loyalty program, which is free to join for the regular tiers, is access to deep discounts during Target Circle Week. This year, the big sales event took place between July 7th and 13th – and examining foot traffic trends to the chain reveals that the promotion fueled a major visit boost: During the week of July 8th, weekly visits to Target were the highest they’ve been since the start of the year, and 6.8% higher than 2024’s weekly visit average. This year’s Circle Week visits also outperformed last year’s by 8.7%.
This demonstrates how the revamped loyalty program and exclusive sales events are successfully driving more customers to Target stores. And other retailers are taking note, with Walmart debuting its own major summer sales events and Costco and Sam’s Club battling it out for the most affordable prices – a major win for shoppers nationwide.
Superstores enjoyed elevated visitation patterns in Q2 2024. Will the superstore and wholesale club price wars continue? And with back-to-school shopping well underway, and the holiday shopping season quickly approaching, how will these retailers continue to perform?
Visit Placer.ai to keep up with the latest data-driven retail news.
Commercial real estate in 2026 is characterized by differentiated performance across markets and asset types. Office recovery trajectories vary meaningfully by metro, retail performance reflects format-specific resilience, and domestic migration patterns continue to influence long-term demand fundamentals.
Many higher-income metros continue to trail 2019 benchmarks but drive the strongest Year-over-year gains, signaling a potential inflection in office utilization trends.
• Sunbelt markets along with New York, NY are closest to pre-pandemic office visit levels, while many coastal gateway and tech-heavy markets trail 2019 benchmarks.
• Many of the metros still furthest below pre-pandemic levels are now posting the strongest year-over-year gains.
• Leasing velocity may accelerate in coastal markets – particularly in high-quality assets – even if full recovery remains distant. The expansion of AI-driven firms and innovation-focused employers could support incremental demand in these ecosystems, reinforcing a bifurcation between top-tier buildings and the broader office inventory.
• Higher-income metros such as San Francisco show deeper structural gaps vs 2019, perhaps due to their higher concentration of hybrid-eligible workers – yet those same metros are driving the strongest YoY recovery in 2025.
• Accelerating growth in 2025 suggests that shifting employer policies, workplace enhancements, or broader labor dynamics may be beginning to drive increased in-office activity.
• Office performance in higher-income markets will increasingly depend on workplace quality and policy alignment. Assets that support premium amenities, modern design, and tenants implementing clear in-office expectations are likely to influence sustained office visits and leasing velocity in these metros.
Retail traffic is broadly improving across states, though performance varies by region and format.
• Retail traffic growth is broad-based, with the majority of states showing year-over-year gains in shopping center traffic in 2025.
• Still, even as many states are posting gains, pockets of softer performance remain – specifically in parts of the Southeast and Midwest.
• Broad-based traffic gains indicate consumer demand is more durable than anticipated. In growth states, operators can shift from defensive stabilization to capturing upside – pushing rents, upgrading tenant quality, and accelerating leasing while momentum holds. In softer markets, the focus should remain on protecting traffic through strong anchors and necessity-driven tenancy.
• Convenience-oriented formats are leading traffic growth, with strip/convenience centers materially outperforming all other shopping center types, and neighborhood and community centers also posting gains. This reinforces the strength of proximity-driven, daily-needs retail.
• Destination retail formats, including regional malls and factory outlets, continue to lag, while super-regional malls were essentially flat. Larger-format, discretionary-driven centers are not capturing the same momentum as convenience-based formats.
• The data suggests that consumer behavior continues to favor convenience, frequency, and necessity over destination-based shopping. Operators should lean into service-oriented and daily-needs tenancy in strip and neighborhood formats, while mall operators may need to further reposition assets toward experiential, mixed-use, or non-retail uses to stabilize traffic.
Domestic migration continues to reshape state-level demand, with gains clustering in select growth corridors.
• Domestic migration drove population gains in parts of the Southeast and Northern Plains, while several Western and Northeastern states show flat or negative migration.
• Some previously strong in-migration states in the South and West, including Texas and Utah, are showing softer movement, while other established migration leaders such as Florida and the Carolinas continue to attract net inbound residents.
• Migration flows are shifting relative to prior years. Operators should temper growth assumptions in states where inflows are slowing and prioritize markets where inbound demand remains strong.
• Florida dominates metro-level migration growth, with eight of the top ten U.S. metros for net domestic migration are in Florida.
• The markets with the strongest domestic migration-driven population gains are not major gateway cities but smaller, often retirement- or lifestyle-oriented metros, suggesting that migration-driven demand is increasingly flowing to secondary markets.
• CRE operators should prioritize expansion, leasing, and site selection in high-growth secondary metros where population inflows can directly translate into retail spending, housing absorption, and service demand.
1. Expanded grocery supply is increasing overall category engagement. New locations and deeper food assortments across formats are bringing shoppers into the category more often, rather than fragmenting demand.
2. Grocery visit growth is being driven by low- and middle-income households. Elevated food costs are leading to more frequent, budget-conscious trips, reinforcing grocery’s role as a non-discretionary category.
3. Short, frequent trips are a major driver of brick-and-mortar traffic growth. Fill-in shopping, deal-seeking, and omnichannel behaviors are pushing visit frequency higher, even as trip duration declines.
4. Scale is accelerating consolidation among large grocery chains. Larger retailers are using their size to invest in value, assortment, private label, and execution, allowing them to capture longer and more engaged shopping trips.
5. Both large and small grocers have viable paths to growth. Large chains are winning by competing for the full grocery list, while smaller banners can grow by specializing, owning specific missions, or offering compelling value that earns them a place in shoppers’ routines.
While much of the retail conversation going into 2026 focused on discretionary spending pressure, digital substitution, and higher-income consumers as the primary drivers of growth, grocery foot traffic tells a different story.
Rather than being diluted by new formats or eroded by e-commerce, brick-and-mortar grocery engagement is expanding. Visits are rising even as grocery supply spreads across wholesale clubs, discount and dollar stores, and mass merchants. At the same time, growth is being powered not by affluent trade areas, but by low- and middle-income households navigating higher food costs through more frequent, targeted trips. Shoppers are showing up more often and increasingly splitting their trips across retailers based on value, availability, and mission – pushing grocers to compete for portions of the grocery list instead of the full weekly basket.
The data also suggests that the largest grocery chains are capturing a disproportionate share of rising grocery demand – but the multi-trip nature of grocery shopping in 2026 means that smaller banners can still drive traffic growth. By strengthening their value proposition, specializing in specific products, or owning specific shopping missions, these smaller chains can complement, rather than compete with, larger one-stop destinations.
Ultimately, AI-based location analytics point to a clear set of grocery growth drivers in 2026: expanded supply that increases overall engagement, more frequent and mission-driven trips, and continued traffic concentration among large chains alongside new opportunities for smaller banners.
One driver of grocery growth in recent years is simply the expansion of grocery supply across multiple retail formats. Wholesale clubs are constantly opening new locations and discount and dollar stores are investing more heavily in their food selection, giving consumers a wider choice of where to shop for groceries. And rather than fragmenting demand, this broader availability appears to have increased overall grocery engagement – benefiting both dedicated grocery stores and grocery-adjacent channels.
Grocery stores continue to capture nearly half of all visits across grocery stores, wholesale clubs, discount and dollar stores, and mass merchants. That share has remained remarkably stable thanks to consistent year-over-year traffic growth – so even as grocery supply increases across categories, dedicated grocery stores remain the primary destination for food shopping.
Meanwhile, mass merchants have seen a decline in relative visit share as expanding grocery assortments at discount and dollar stores and the growing store fleets of wholesale clubs give consumers more alternatives for one-stop shopping.
While much of the broader retail conversation heading into 2026 centers on higher-income consumers carrying growth, the trend looks different in the grocery space. Recent visit trends show that grocery growth has increasingly shifted toward lower- and middle-income trade areas, underscoring the distinct dynamics of non-discretionary retail.
For lower- and middle-income shoppers, elevated food costs appear to be translating into more frequent grocery trips as consumers manage budgets through smaller baskets, deal-seeking, and shopping across retailers. In contrast, higher-income households – often cited as a key growth engine for discretionary retail – are contributing less to grocery visit growth, likely reflecting more stable shopping patterns or a greater ability to consolidate trips or shift spend online.
This means that, in 2026, grocery growth is not being propped up by high-income consumers. Instead, it is being fueled by necessity-driven shopping behavior in lower- and middle-income communities – reinforcing grocery’s role as an essential category and suggesting that similar dynamics may be at play across other non-discretionary retail segments.
Another factor driving grocery growth is the rise in short grocery visits in recent years. Between 2022 and 2025, the biggest year-over-year visit gains in the grocery space went to visits under 30 minutes, with sub-15 minute visits seeing particularly big boosts. As of 2025, visits under 15 minutes made up over 40% of grocery visits nationwide – up from 37.9% of visits in 2022.
This shift toward shorter visits – especially those under 15 minutes – is driven in part by the continued expansion of omnichannel grocery shopping, as many consumers complete larger stock-up orders online and rely on in-store trips for order collection or quick, fill-in needs. At the same time, the rise in short visits paired with consistent YoY growth in grocery traffic points to additional, behavior-driven forces at play – consumers' growing willingness to shop around at different grocery stores in search of the best deal or just-right product.
Value-conscious shoppers – particularly consumers from low- and middle-income households, which have driven much of recent grocery growth – seem to be increasingly shopping across multiple retailers to secure the best prices. This behavior often involves making targeted trips to different stores in search of the strongest deals, a pattern that is contributing to the rise in shorter, more frequent grocery visits. At the same time, other grocery shoppers are making quick trips to pick up a single ingredient or specialty item – perhaps reflecting the increasingly sophisticated home cooks and social media-driven ingredient crazes. In both these cases, speed is secondary to getting the best value or the right product.
So while some shorter visits reflect a growing emphasis on efficiency – as shoppers use in-store trips to complement primarily online grocery shopping – others appear driven by a preference for value or product selection over speed. Despite their differences, all of these behaviors have one thing in common – they're all contributing to continued growth in brick-and-mortar grocery visits. Grocers who invest in providing efficient in-store experiences are particularly well-positioned to benefit from these trends.
As early as 2022, the top 15 most-visited grocery chains already accounted for roughly half of all grocery visits nationwide. And by outpacing the industry average in terms of visit growth, these chains have continued to capture a growing share of grocery foot traffic.
This widening gap suggests that scale is increasingly enabling grocers to reinvest in the factors that attract and retain shoppers. Larger chains are better positioned to invest in broader and more differentiated product selection, stronger private-label programs that deliver quality at accessible price points, competitive pricing, and operational excellence across stores and omnichannel touchpoints. These capabilities allow top chains to serve a wide range of shopping missions – from quick, convenience-driven trips to more intentional visits in search of the right product or ingredient.
Consolidation at the top of the grocery category is reinforcing a virtuous cycle: scale enables better value, selection, and experience, which in turn draws more shoppers into stores and supports continued grocery traffic growth.
In 2025, the top 15 most-visited grocery chains accounted for a disproportionate share of visits lasting 15 minutes or more, while smaller grocers captured a larger share of the shortest trips. As shown above, larger grocery chains, which tend to attract longer visits, grew faster than the industry overall – but short visits, which skew more heavily toward smaller chains, accounted for a greater share of total traffic growth. Together, these patterns show that both long, destination trips and short, targeted visits are driving grocery traffic growth and creating viable paths forward for retailers of all sizes.
Larger chains are more likely to serve as destinations for fuller shopping missions, competing for the entire grocery list – or a significant share of it. But smaller banners can grow too by competing for more short visits. By specializing in a specific product category, owning a clearly defined shopping mission, or delivering a compelling value proposition, smaller grocers can earn a place in shoppers’ routines and become a deliberate stop within a broader grocery journey.
As grocery moves deeper into 2026, growth is being driven by the cumulative effect of how consumers are navigating food shopping today. Expanded supply has increased overall engagement, higher food costs are driving more frequent and targeted trips, and shoppers are increasingly willing to split their grocery list across retailers based on value, availability, and mission.
Looking ahead, this suggests that grocery growth will remain resilient, but unevenly distributed. Retailers that clearly understand which trips they are best positioned to win – and invest accordingly – will be best placed to capture that growth. Large chains are likely to continue benefiting from scale, consolidation, and their ability to serve full shopping missions, while smaller banners can grow by earning a defined role within shoppers’ broader grocery journeys. In 2026, success in grocery will be less about winning every trip and more about consistently winning the right ones.
To optimize office utilization and surrounding activity in 2026, stakeholders should:
1. Plan for continued, but slower, office recovery. Attendance continues to rise and has reached a post-pandemic high, but moderating growth suggests the return-to-office may progress at a more gradual and incremental pace than in prior years.
2. Account for growing seasonality in office staffing, local retail operations, and municipal services. As office visitation becomes increasingly concentrated in late spring and summer, offices, downtown retailers, and cities may need to plan for more predictable peaks and troughs by adjusting hours, staffing levels, and local services accordingly, rather than relying on annual averages.
3. Align leasing strategies with seasonal demand. Stronger attendance in Q2 and Q3 suggests these quarters are best suited for leasing activity, while softer Q1 and Q4 periods may be better used for renovations, repositioning, and targeted activation efforts designed to draw workers in.
4. Design hybrid policies around midweek anchor days. With Tuesdays and Wednesdays consistently driving the highest office attendance, employers can maximize collaboration and space utilization by concentrating meetings, programming, and in-office expectations midweek.
5. Reduce early-week commute friction to support attendance. Monday office attendance appears closely correlated with commute ease, suggesting that reliable and efficient transportation may be an important factor in early-week office recovery.
6. Prioritize proximity in leasing and development decisions. Visits from employees traveling less than five miles to work have increased steadily since 2019, reinforcing the value of centrally located offices and housing near employment hubs.
2025 was the year of the return-to-office (RTO) mandate. Employers across industries – from Amazon to JPMorgan Chase – instituted full-time on-site requirements and sought to rein in remote work. But the year also underscored the limits of policy. As employee pushback and enforcement challenges mounted, many organizations turned to quieter tactics such as “hybrid creep” to gradually expand in-office expectations without triggering outright resistance.
For employers seeking to boost attendance, as well as office owners, retailers, and cities looking to maximize today’s visitation patterns, understanding what actually drives employee behavior has become more critical than ever. This reports dives into the data to examine office visitation patterns in 2025 – and explore how structural factors such as weather, commute convenience, and workplace proximity have emerged as key differentiators shaping how and when, and how often workers come into the office.
National office visits rose 5.6% year over year in 2025, bringing attendance to just 31.7% below pre-pandemic levels and marking the highest point since COVID disrupted workplace routines. At the same time, the pace of growth slowed compared to 2024, signaling a possible transition into a steadier phase of recovery.
With new return-to-office mandates expected in 2026, and the balance of power quietly shifting towards employers, additional gains remain likely. But the trajectory suggested by the data points toward gradual progress rather than a return to the more rapid rebounds seen in 2023 or 2024.
Before COVID, “I couldn’t come in, it was raining” would have sounded like a flimsy excuse to most bosses. But today, weather, travel, and individual scheduling are widely accepted reasons to stay home, reflecting a broader assumption that face time should flex around convenience.
This shift is visible in the growing seasonality of office visitation, which has intensified even as overall attendance continues to rise. In 2019, office life followed a relatively steady year-round cadence, with only modest quarterly variation after adjusting for the number of working days. In recent years, however, greater seasonality has emerged. Since 2024, Q1 and Q4 have consistently underperformed while Q2 and Q3 have posted meaningfully stronger attendance – a pattern that became even more pronounced in 2025. Winter weather disruptions, extended holiday travel, and the growing normalization of “workations” appear to be pulling some visits out of the colder, holiday-heavy months and concentrating them into late spring and summer.
For employers, office owners, downtown retailers, and city planners, this emerging seasonality matters. Staffing, operating budgets, and programming decisions increasingly need to account for predictable soft quarters and peak periods, making quarterly planning a more useful lens than annual averages. Leasing activity may also convert best in Q2 and Q3, when districts feel most active. Slower quarters, meanwhile, may be better suited for renovations, construction, or employer- and city-led programming designed to give workers a reason to show up.
The growing premium placed on convenience is also evident in the persistence of the TGIF workweek – and in the factors shaping its regional variability.
Before COVID, Mondays were typically the busiest day of the week, followed by relatively steady attendance through Thursday and a modest drop-off on Fridays. Today, Tuesdays and Wednesdays have firmly established themselves as the primary anchor days, while Mondays and Fridays see consistently lower activity. And notably, this pattern has remained essentially stable over the past three years – despite minor fluctuations – as workers continue to cluster their in-office time around the days that offer the most perceived value while preserving flexibility at the edges of the week.
At the same time, while the hybrid workweek remains firmly entrenched nationwide, its contours vary significantly across regions – and the data suggests that convenience is once again a key differentiator.
Across major markets, a clear pattern emerges: Cities with higher reliance on public transportation tend to see weaker Monday office attendance, while markets where more workers drive alone show stronger early-week presence. While industry mix and local office culture still matter, the data points to commute hassle as another factor potentially shaping Monday attendance.
New York City, excluded from the chart below as a clear outlier, stands as the exception that proves the rule. Despite nearly half of local employees relying on public transportation (48.7% according to the Census 2024 (ACS)), the city’s extensive and deeply embedded transit system appears to reduce perceived friction. In 2025, Mondays accounted for 18.4% of weekly office visits in the city, even with heavy transit usage.
The contrast highlights an important nuance: Where transit is fast, frequent, and integrated into daily routines, it can support office recovery, offering a potential roadmap for other dense urban markets seeking to rebuild early-week momentum.
Another powerful signal of today’s convenience-first mindset shows up in commute distances. Since 2019, the share of office visits generated by employees traveling less than five miles has steadily increased, largely at the expense of mid-distance commuters traveling 10 to 25 miles.
To be sure, this metric reflects total visits rather than unique visitors, so the shift may be driven by increased visit frequency among workers with shorter, simpler commutes rather than a change in where employees live overall. Still, the pattern is telling: Workers with shorter commutes appear more likely to generate repeat in-person visits, while longer and more complex commutes correspond with fewer trips. Over time, this dynamic could shape office leasing decisions, residential demand near employment centers – whether in urban cores or in nearby suburbs – and the geography of the workforce.
Taken together, the data paints a clear picture of the modern return-to-office landscape. Attendance is rising, but behavior is no longer driven by mandates alone. Instead, workers are making rational, convenience-based decisions about when coming in is worth the effort.
For cities, the implication is straightforward: Ease of access matters. Investments in transit reliability, last-mile connectivity, and housing near employment centers can all play a meaningful role in shaping how consistently people show up. For employers, too, the lesson is that the path back to the office runs through convenience, not just compulsion, as attendance gains are increasingly driven by how effectively organizations reduce friction and increase the perceived value of being on-site.
