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Target's visits shot up over the pandemic – but the chain has struggled to maintain its COVID-era momentum in recent years. Now, the upcoming back-to-school season presents an opportunity for the chain to bring visits back up.
Target's visits shot up between 2020 and 2022 as Americans stuck at home stocked up on everything from home goods to snacks to sporting equipment. But traffic has slowed since mid-2022, and although Target's visit gap has narrowed recently – May '25 visits were down just 1.7% YoY, a significant improvement from February's 9.1% YoY visit gap – year-over-year (YoY) visits were still down for five of the last six months.
Now, the upcoming back-to-school season may present just the opportunity the retailer needs to swing back into visit growth.
August is Target's second-busiest month of the year (the first is December), as the retailer sees visit upticks from everyone from families looking for back-to-school supplies to students getting ready for a new semester and renters switching leases. This seasonal strength offers more than just high traffic volume – it presents a unique comeback opportunity.
And August isn't just one of Target's busiest months – recent August traffic trends have also outperformed the broader twelve-month pattern.
While Target's overall YoY visit gap has widened over the past year (visits dropped 3.0% between June '24 and May '25 compared to the previous 12-month period, versus a smaller 2.2% decline in the prior year comparison), August's YoY visit gap has narrowed. This may suggest that shoppers who've reduced their Target visits throughout the year still prioritize the retailer during back-to-school season.
This creates a strategic window: Target can leverage this seasonal loyalty by enhancing its in-store experience and product selection during summer months, potentially winning back customers who might otherwise shop elsewhere during the rest of the year.
Families – especially middle and high-income families – make up a significant share of Target's captured market throughout the year. August is no exception – almost half (43.2%) of Target's captured market was made up of just four family segments in August '24 (according to Spatial.ai PersonaLive audience segmentation). Still, this is slightly lower than the 43.4% of family segments in Target's captured market between June '24 and May '25 – indicating that Target's August strength extends beyond its traditional family base.
Meanwhile, the share of single segments in Target's captured markets, which stood at 19.6% over the past twelve months, was up to 20.4% in August '24. So the retailer's summer boost is also driven by college students, young professionals, and other single shoppers – and these consumers may be looking for a different product mix and shopping experience than the traditional back-to-school fare.
Families remain Target's largest visitor segment, so the company should continue meeting the needs of this audience by offering a one-stop back-to-school destination along with BOPIS and curbside pickup to accommodate parents' busy lifestyles.
But the company can also make sure its offerings and shopping experience is set up to meet the needs of its Gen Z and millennial visitors when planning its back to school campaigns and in-store set up. Curating a "Singles & Students" section, carrying compact furniture and dorm room essentials, and setting up Instagram-worthy product displays may help these shoppers see Target as their retail home – building loyalty and boosting Target's traffic throughout the year.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Stanford Stadium has hosted numerous major sporting events over the years – from Super Bowl XIX to soccer matches at the 1984 Summer Olympics, and both the 1994 Men’s and 1999 Women’s World Cup. But on May 31st and June 1st, 2025, Coldplay played the first live music event ever held at the venue – part of the band’s “Music of the Spheres” tour – and what a debut it was.
We examined the data to see how attendance spiked during this landmark concert and how the audience compared to the stadium’s usual visitor base.
During the week of May 26th, 2025, when Coldplay took the stage, visits to Stanford Stadium surged by an astonishing 1425.9% compared to the venue’s weekly average since June 2024. Other recent major events – including Stanford commencement (June 16th, 2024), the big Earthquakes vs. Galaxy MLS match (June 29th, 2024), and the Stanford Cardinal’s own home opener against TCU on August 30th, 2024 – all drew much smaller crowds than the Coldplay concert.
Concertgoers came from far and wide to see Coldplay in action. Plenty of locals attended, including 15.1% who came from less than five miles away. But nearly one-fifth of visitors journeyed more than 100 miles to enjoy the music – a testament to the band’s strong draw.
To understand how the Coldplay concert impacted Stanford Stadium’s visitor profile, we compared the psychographics of Stanford Stadium’s captured market during the 2024 football season (August 24th to December 1st, 2024) to those during the Coldplay concert.
Across both analyzed periods, Stanford Stadium attracted higher-than-average shares of Spatial.ai: PersonaLive’s “Ultra Wealthy Families,” “Educated Urbanites,” and “Young Professionals” segment groups. However, the concert’s audience skewed more toward “Ultra Wealthy Families,” whereas football fans were nearly twice as likely to be “Young Professionals” and slightly more likely to be “Educated Urbanites”. “Near-Urban Diverse Families” and “Wealthy Suburban Families” were underrepresented in the stadium’s market during both periods, though they both constituted a slightly higher share during the Coldplay concert – further underscoring the event’s power to attract different audiences than usual.
As universities navigate the changing nature of college athletics, NIL rights, and shifting revenue streams, using a football stadium as a concert venue is a creative way to utilize the space and bring in some dollars – as well as joy to both students and other visitors. Is this milestone event a precursor to more major cultural happenings at the Bay Area stadium?
For more data-driven live event analyses, follow The Anchor.
Nike has recently pivoted away from its "Consumer Direct Acceleration" strategy in favor of a more multi-channel distribution approach. What does the data say about this shift? We dove into traffic numbers and audience composition metrics to find out.
In 2020, Nike introduced its "Consumer Direct Acceleration" strategy that had aimed to expedite the company's DTC pivot in an effort to regain control of the brand and own the customer relationship directly. But the emphasis on owned channels did not yield the desired results – in fact, the move away from wholesale may have helped smaller sneaker companies take over shelf space and market share from the legacy sportswear brand.
In mid-2023, Nike shifted to a more balanced, multi-channel approach, and by late 2023, Nike was once again selling its products through retail partners such as DSW and Macy's. More recently, in May 2025, Nike announced that it would be resuming direct sales on Amazon – a channel the brand exited in 2019 – in an effort to reach customers where they shop.
Diving into year-over-year monthly traffic numbers for Nike stores nationwide underscores the merits of the recent strategic shift. Visits to Nike stores have been trending negative for eight months straight, validating the recent company-wide pivot back towards a more holistic, multi-channel approach.
Using Spatial.ai PersonaLive data to compare the audience composition in Nike's captured market with the audience composition in some captured markets of some of its largest retail partners further highlights the advantages of Nike's new multi-channel approach.
The data shows that Nike already does a great job of reaching "Ultra Wealthy Families," "Young Professionals," and "Educated Urbanites" through its owned stores – the share of these segments in Nike's trade area is larger than in the trade areas of any of its main partners. But both DSW and DICK's Sporting Goods reach more suburban families than Nike, with a larger share of "Wealthy Suburban Families" and "Upper Suburban Diverse Families" in their trade areas than in Nike's. And Macy's and Foot Locker seem to be better positioned to reach "Near-Urban Diverse Families" and "Young Urban Singles".
The distinct audience composition of each retail partner suggests that a varied wholesale approach is necessary to achieve comprehensive market coverage, allowing Nike to reach a far broader spectrum of consumers than its own stores can capture alone.
Nike's return to a multi-channel approach suggests that achieving comprehensive market coverage requires a balanced strategy, leveraging partners to engage with a broader spectrum of consumers in addition to building out owned DTC channels.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
In today’s challenging dining market, restaurants are battling for consumer attention through special deals, limited time offers (LTOs), and pop-culture collaborations. We dove into the data to see how several special recent events at Chipotle, IHOP, and Jack in the Box helped drive visits to these chains.
Earlier this year, Chipotle leaned into the Stanley Cup excitement with an LTO designed especially for hockey fans. On Monday, April 21st, 2025 – just two days after the start of Round 1 playoffs – Chipotle offered one of its classic BOGO (buy one get one free) deals for anyone wearing a hockey jersey who dined at a participating location after 3:00 PM.
Nationwide, the promotion sparked a substantial 34.4% visit boost during the hours of the offer compared to an average Monday. But in Minneapolis-St. Paul, at the heart of the so-called “State of Hockey”, visits surged by an astonishing 77.3% – the most seen in any metro area throughout the U.S. – underscoring just how impactful relevant LTOs can be in the right market.
It’s no secret that everybody loves free stuff. But another recent LTO shows that people also embrace the chance to do good. On March 4th, 2025, hungry diners flocked to IHOP restaurants nationwide to snag free pancakes – no purchase required! – at participating locations. The promotion, part of the chain’s month-long charitable drive, encouraged guests to donate to Feeding America.
IHOP’s promotion spurred visit increases across the country. But it struck a particular chord in certain northeastern markets – especially in New Jersey, where a local franchise owner’s interviews about the event’s charitable aspect helped motivate a remarkable 142.5% visit spike. And on the West Coast, particularly in California, the promotion’s success was supported by the chain’s “20k for Pancake Day” event in Santa Monica, held on March 1, 2025 to raise money for Feeding America, which garnered substantial media coverage.
But freebies aren’t the only way to drive traffic. On May 29th, 2025, Jack in the Box created plenty of buzz with the launch of its late-night T-Pain Munchie Meal, available after 9:00 PM. By the week of June 2nd, hungry night owls were flocking to Jack in the Box in droves, driving substantial increases in late-night traffic.
The late-night offer increased the proportion of nighttime visits to 25.1% during the week of June 2nd, compared to a 12-month average of 23.0%. The largest nighttime visit increase came on Thursday, June 5th, likely due to excitement for T-Pain’s June 6 debut in “Jack Zone Wars,” a custom in-game Fortnite world built specifically for this collaboration. And with T-Pain’s June 26th live-stream Fortnite event still ahead, momentum will likely continue to build as the month wears on.
These recent promotions at Chipotle, IHOP, and Jack in the Box highlight the power of well-timed, relevant LTOs to create excitement and boost traffic. By tapping into local cultural trends, charitable causes, and pop-culture collaborations, restaurants can stay top of mind – even in a crowded dining market.
For more data-driven dining insights follow The Anchor.
Since its emergence from bankruptcy in late 2020, JCPenney has been on a slow and steady comeback trajectory. Last year, the company continued closing underperforming stores and revamped its loyalty program, which helped it achieve a year-over-year (YoY) visit gap of just 3.0% and a YoY gap in average visits per location of just 1.8% in Q4 2024.
Part of last year's success was likely also due to the company's investments in major promotional efforts – and now JCPenney is back in the advertising game with its new "Yes, JCPenney" national ad campaign. We dove into the data to see how these marketing efforts are bearing fruit.
Although JCPenney has been gradually improving its metrics, the chain generally underperformed the department store category for most of 2024 – until traffic turned around in October and November 2024, at the height of the brand's "Really Big Deals Reveals" campaign. Visits to JCPenney then declined below the category average again, with the chain underperforming the category between December 2024 and March 2025 – with the exception of February, when the chain's "Petite Power List" campaign may have temporarily boosted visits.
But recently, the company launched a major nationwide campaign titled "Yes, JCPenney," with the goal of challenging and overcoming outdated consumer perceptions of the brand. The ads started running in April 2025, and traffic to the chain picked up significantly – with year-over-year (YoY) visits to JCPenney up 0.7% and 3.0% in April and May 2025, respectively.
Diving into May 2025 YoY traffic to the chain by DMA indicates that the "Yes, JCPenney" has been met with broad success, with the chain seeing visit strength across the country. The visit increases were especially notable in the South and Midwest – with DMAs in South Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Texas seeing major lifts – suggesting that the focus on style and value connected deeply with consumers in these regions.
Diving into the recent audience shifts at JCPenney suggests that part of the campaign's success may be attributed to its resonance with single shoppers. Using the Experian: Mosaic dataset reveals that nationwide, the share of "Singles and Starters" in JCPenney's captured market edged up slightly from 11.2% in May 2024 to 11.3% in May 2025, while the share of "Significant Singles" rose from 4.4% to 4.7%.
And though these nationwide shifts are relatively small ones, in some DMAs where JCPenney saw a particularly notable YoY visit increase, the share of singles in the chain’s trade area increased more significantly. For example, May YoY data shows that JCPenney visits in New York, NY, increased by 9.8%, while the share of "Significant Singles" grew from 22.7% to 26.1%. And in Tyler-Longview, TX, visits increased 18.0% YoY in May 2025 while the share of "Singles and Starters" rose from 12.8% to 14.0% in the same period.
JCPenney's success in increasing its resonance with single consumers – who are likely younger, and who may be less familiar with the legacy brand – suggests that the "Yes, JCPenney" campaign may be attracting a new generation of shoppers to the chain.
The initial surge in May 2025 foot traffic, particularly among younger, single shoppers, is quite promising. Will the company succeed in converting shoppers brought in through the "Yes, JCPenney" campaign into sustained visitors and loyal customers?
Keep up with The Anchor to find out.
Apparel retail has experienced significant setbacks in recent years, from the COVID-19 pandemic to supply chain disruptions to inflation – and now the emerging threat of tariffs. Yet, the sector continues to adapt. We took a look at the overall performance of the luxury apparel segment to see how things are holding up as the year's first half draws to a close.
The current economic climate has posed significant challenges to the apparel retail segment, and luxury retail has not been immune. The category saw its visits slow year-over-year throughout 2024, likely owing to the accumulated strain of inflation and rising prices. Yet, a surprising opportunity is now emerging, stemming from an unexpected catalyst: tariff concerns.
While apparel visits (excluding the off-price segment) generally slowed year-over-year, luxury apparel experienced only a single month of visit declines – in February '25 – likely owing to the comparison to a leap year and a longer February 2024. And more recently, luxury apparel has been performing especially well, with the segment seeing year-over-year (YoY) increases of 4.7% and 4.4% in April and May 2024, respectively – perhaps driven by the risk of price hikes and the uncertainty around the current tariff landscape.
Diving into the audience composition for nationwide luxury brands reveals that the category's current strength is likely driven in part by a more affluent and more suburban consumer base. Over the past four years, the median household income (HHI) in luxury chains' captured market has increased – rising from $101.9K in May 2025 to $108.0K in May 2025. During this period, the share of suburban consumers in the category's trade area also grew, from 39.1% in May 2022 to 41.9% in May 2025.
This suggests that the luxury sector's current resilience is being powered by an increasingly affluent and suburban clientele who are likely better insulated from broader economic pressures.
Despite operating in a challenging environment, luxury retail is finding ways to keep its visits up. Will the segment continue to rally?
Visit Placer.ai/anchor for the latest data-driven retail insights.
Return-to-office (RTO) trends have been closely watched over the past few years, with relevant stakeholders trying to puzzle out the impact remote and hybrid work have had on business operations and worker performance. And while visits to office buildings, overall, remain below pre-pandemic levels, office recovery varies from city to city – reflecting the complex and nuanced nature of regional economic trends, workforce preferences, and industry-specific needs.
This white paper harnesses location analytics to explore office recovery in the country’s second-largest economy – Los Angeles. The first part of the report is based on an analysis of foot traffic data from Placer.ai’s Los Angeles Office Index – an index comprising 100 office buildings in LA (including several in the greater metro area). The second part of the report broadens the lens to analyze visits by local employees to points of interest (POIs) corresponding to four major LA-area office districts: Century City, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, and Culver City. The white paper examines the impact that return-to-work mandates have had on visits to office buildings, discovers which demographic groups are driving the RTO, and explores the connection between commute time and return-to-office rates.
The return to office in Los Angeles has consistently lagged behind other major cities, underperforming nationwide recovery levels since the pandemic ground in-office work to a virtual halt. Still, the city’s office buildings are seeing a steady increase in visits, with foot traffic tending to spike at the beginning of each year. This indicates that even though office visits in LA are still below national averages, they are on a steady growth trajectory – a promising sign for stakeholders in the city.
A closer examination of Los Angeles office buildings also shows that despite the overall lag, some top-performing buildings in the LA metro area are defying the odds. Visits to the 20 local office buildings with the narrowest Q2 2024 post-COVID visit gaps were down just 8.7% in June 2024 compared to January 2019 – significantly outperforming the nationwide average.
So while overall office recovery in the city is still behind nationwide trends, these top-performing buildings indicate an optimistic outlook for the city’s office spaces.
Diving into the demographics of visitors to LA’s top-performing office buildings reveals an important insight: these buildings are attracting younger workers. This cohort has shown a stronger preference for in-person work compared to their older colleagues.
Analyzing the buildings’ captured markets with psychographics from AGS: Panorama reveals that these buildings are attracting visitors from areas with larger shares of "Emerging Leaders" and "Young Coastal Technocrats" than the broader metro area.
"Emerging Leaders'' – upper-middle-class professionals in early stages of their careers – make up 20.3% of households in the trade areas feeding visits to these top-performing buildings, compared to 14.9% in the broader LA CBSA. Similarly, "Young Coastal Technocrats," young and highly educated professionals in tech and professional services, account for 14.7% of households driving visits to the top-performing buildings, compared to only 12.1% in the broader area.
The trend suggests that companies in these high-performing office buildings employ many early-career professionals eager to accelerate their careers and work in-person with colleagues and mentors. This is a positive sign for the future of the office market in the LA metro area, indicating that it is attractive to key demographic groups that are likely to drive future growth and innovation.
Over the past few years, the debate regarding return-to-office mandates has been a heated one. Will employees follow return-to-office requirements? Can companies enforce the return to office after offering remote and hybrid work options? Recent location analytics data suggests that, at least in the Los Angeles metro area, some return-to-office mandates have been effective.
Three major tech companies – Activision Blizzard, TikTok, and SNAP Inc. – recently made their return-to-office policies stricter. Activision mandated a full return to the office in January 2024. TikTok has also intensified its return-to-office policy while seeking to expand its office presence in the greater Los Angeles area. And SNAP Inc. required employees to return to the office earlier this year as a condition of continued employment.
Visitation patterns at each of these companies' respective headquarters suggest that their policies have directly impacted visit frequency. Since the beginning of the year, the share of repeat office visits (defined as two or more visits per week) has increased for all three locations. Activision saw its share of repeat office visits grow from 52.1% in H1 2023 to 61.4% in the same period of 2024. TikTok’s repeat visits grew from 49.5% to 61.0%, and SNAP’s repeat visits increased from 36.6% to 42.8%.
These numbers highlight how return-to-office policies can lead to noticeable changes in office visit patterns and offer a blueprint to other businesses looking to foster a stronger in-office workforce.
Los Angeles is the second-largest metro area in the country, with several distinct business districts across its sprawling landscape. And a closer look at four major office hubs in the greater LA area – Century City, Downtown LA, Santa Monica, and Culver City – highlights how the office recovery can vary, not just by city or demographic, but on a neighborhood level.
Weekday visits by local employees to all four analyzed business districts have rebounded significantly since 2020 – though each area has followed its own particular trajectory.
Culver City, home to major businesses including Sony Pictures and Disney Digital Network, saw the least pronounced drop in employee visits during the early days of the pandemic. And in Q2 2024, weekday visits by local workers were down just 18.4% compared to Q1 2019.
Century City, on the other hand, saw the most marked drop in local employee foot traffic as the pandemic set in. But the district’s recovery trajectory has also been the most dramatic – with a Q2 2024 visit gap of just 28.5%, smaller than Downtown LA’s 29.7% visit gap. Perhaps capitalizing on this momentum, Century City is expanding its business district with the addition of a major new office building, set to be completed in 2026 and serve as the headquarters for Creative Artists Agency. Santa Monica, for its part, finished off Q2 2024 with a 23.3% visit gap.
Century City stands out within the Los Angeles metropolitan area for its dramatic decline and subsequent resurgence in local employee foot traffic. And looking at another metric of office recovery – employee commute distance – further underscores the district’s remarkable comeback.
The share of employees commuting to Century City from three to seven miles away has nearly returned to pre-COVID levels – suggesting a normalization of commuting patterns by local workers living in the area. In H1 2019, 33.5% of workers in Century City commuted between 3 and 7 miles to work; in 2022, that number had dropped to 29.8%. But by 2024, the share of visitors making that commute had grown to 32.5% – much closer to pre-COVID numbers.
Similarly, the region’s trade area size, which had contracted significantly in the wake of the pandemic, bounced back significantly in 2024. This serves as another indication of Century City’s rebound, cementing Century City’s status as a key business hub within the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Five years after the upheaval caused by the pandemic, office spaces are still changing. Although the Los Angeles area has taken longer to recover than other major cities, analyzing local visitation data shows significant potential for the city’s business areas. With young employees leading the return-to-office charge, the city is poised to keep driving its strong economy and adjust to an evolving office environment.
Retail media networks (RMNs) have cemented their roles as the future – and present – of advertising. These networks enable advertisers to promote products and services through a retailer’s online properties and physical stores, when consumers are close to the point-of-purchase and primed to buy.
Today, we take a closer look at two newcomers to the retail media space: Costco Wholesale and Wawa. Both chains have an online presence – but both also excel at in-store experiences, offering unique opportunities for consumer engagement and exposure to new products.
This white paper dives into the data to explore some of the key advantages Costco and Wawa bring to the retail media table – and examine how the retailers’ physical reach can best be leveraged to help advertising partners find new audiences.
Wawa and Costco, the latest additions to the growing number of companies with retail media networks, exhibit significant advertising potential. Both brands boast a wide reach and diverse customer base, and both have access to troves of customer data through membership and loyalty programs.
Foot traffic data confirms the robust offline positioning of the two retailers. In Q1 2024, year-over-year (YoY) visits to Costco and Wawa increased 9.5% and 7.5% respectively – showing that their in-store engagement is on a growth trajectory.
And since consumers tend to spend a lot more time in-store than they do on retailers’ websites, Costco’s and Wawa’s strong brick-and-mortar growth positions them especially well to help advertisers reach new customers. In Q1 2024, the average visits to Costco’s and Wawa’s physical stores lasted 37.4 and 11.4 minutes respectively – compared to just 6.7 and 4.6 minutes for the chains’ websites. These longer in-store dwell times can be harnessed to maximize ad exposure and offer partners more extended opportunities for meaningful interactions with customers. Partners can also analyze the behavior and preferences of the two chains’ growing visitor bases to craft targeted online campaigns.
Costco’s retail media network will tap into the on- and offline shopping habits of its staggering 74.5 million members to inform targeted advertising by partners. And the retailer’s tremendous reach offers a significant opportunity to engage customers in-store.
But while Costco is dominant in some areas of the country, other markets are led by competitors like Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club. And advertisers looking to choose between competing RMNs or hone in on the areas where Costco is strongest can analyze Costco's performance and visit share – on a local or national level – to determine where to focus their efforts.
An analysis of the share of visits to wholesalers across the country reveals that Costco is the dominant wholesale membership club in much of the Western United States. But Costco also captures the largest share of wholesale club visits in many other major population centers, including important markets like New York, Chicago, Phoenix, and San Antonio. Costco’s widespread brick-and-mortar dominance offers prospective advertising partners a significant opportunity to connect with regional audiences in a wide array of key markets.
Another one of Costco’s key advantages as a retail media provider lies in its highly loyal and engaged audience. In May 2024, a whopping 41.4% of Costco’s visitors frequented the club at least twice during the month – compared to 36.6% for Sam’s Club and 36.0% for BJ’s Wholesale.
Moreover, Costco led in average visit duration compared to its competitors. In May 2024, customers spent an average of 37.1 minutes at Costco – surpassing even the impressive dwell times at Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club.
YoY visits per location to Costco, too, were the highest of the analyzed wholesalers, all three of which saw YoY increases. These metrics further establish the wholesaler’s position as an effective retail media provider.
Even when foot traffic doesn't show a brand’s clear regional dominance, location analytics can reveal other metrics that signal its unique potential. Take the Richmond-Petersburg, VA, designated market area (DMA), for example. In May 2024, BJ’s Wholesale Club led the DMA with 41.2% of wholesale club visits, while Costco was a close second with 37.3% of visits.
But despite BJ’s lead in visit share, Costco's Richmond audience was more affluent. Costco's visitors came from trade areas with a median household income (HHI) of $93.2K/year, compared to $73.1K/year for Sam’s Club and $89.5K/year for BJ’s. Additionally, Costco drew a higher share of weekday visits than its counterparts.
Analyzing shopper habits and preferences across chains on a local level can provide crucial context for strategists working on media campaigns. Advertisers can partner with the brands most likely to attract consumers interested in their offerings, and identify where – and when – to focus their advertising efforts.
Convenience stores, or c-stores, are emerging as destinations in and of themselves – and their rising popularity among a wider-than-ever swath of consumers opens up significant opportunities in the retail advertising space.
Wawa is a relative newcomer to the world of retail media, after other c-stores like 7-Eleven and Casey’s launched their networks in 2022 and 2023. But despite coming a bit late to the party, the potential for Wawa’s Goose Media Network is significant – thanks to a cadre of highly loyal visitors who enjoy the physical shopping experience the c-store chain offers.
In May 2024, Wawa’s share of loyal visitors (defined as those who visited the chain at least twice in a month) was 60.1%. In contrast, other leading c-store chains operating in Wawa’s market area – QuickTrip and 7-Eleven, for example – saw loyalty rates of 56.0% and 47.9%, respectively, for the same period.
Additionally, Wawa visitors browsed the aisles longer than those at other convenience retailers. In May 2024, 39.9% of Wawa visitors stayed in-store for 10 minutes or longer, compared to 29.6% at QuickTrip and 25.7% at 7-Eleven.
Wawa's loyal customer base and longer visit durations make it a strong contender in the retail media space. By harnessing this high level of customer engagement, Wawa can draw in advertisers and develop targeted marketing strategies that resonate with its dedicated shoppers.
Wawa has been on an expansion roll over the past few years, with plans to open at least 280 stores over the next decade in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. The chain has also been steadily increasing its footprint in Florida – between January 2019 and April 2024, Wawa grew from 167 Sunshine State locations to 280, with more to come.
And analyzing changes in Wawa’s visit share in one of Florida’s biggest markets – the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale DMA – shows how successful the chain’s local expansion has been. Between January 2019 and April 2024, Wawa more than doubled its category-wide visit share in the Miami area (i.e. the portion of total c-store visits in the DMA going to Wawa) – from 19.0% to nearly 40.0%.
A look at changes in Wawa’s Miami-Ft. Lauderdale trade area shows that the chain’s growing visit share has been driven by an expanding market and an increasingly diverse audience.
In April 2019, there were some 55 zip code tabulation areas (ZCTAs) in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale DMA from which Wawa drew at least 3,000 visits per month. By April 2021, this figure grew to 96 – and by April 2024, it reached 129.
Over the same period, the share of “Family Union” households in Wawa’s local captured market – defined by the Experian: Mosaic dataset as families comprised of middle-income, blue collar workers – nearly doubled, growing from 7.4% in April 2019 to 14.4% in April 2024.
Retail media networks that make it easier to introduce shoppers to products and brands that are closely aligned with their preferences and habits offer a win-win-win for retailers, advertisers, and consumers alike. And Costco and Wawa are extremely well-positioned to make the most of this opportunity.
Everybody loves coffee. And with some 75% of American adults indulging in a cup of joe at least once a week, it’s no wonder the industry is constantly on an upswing.
In early 2024, year-over-year (YoY) visits to coffee chains increased nationwide – with every state in the continental U.S. experiencing year-over-year (YoY) coffee visit growth.
The most substantial foot traffic boosts were seen in smaller markets like Oklahoma (19.4%), Wyoming (19.3%), and Arkansas (16.9%), where expansions may have a more substantial impact on statewide industry growth. But the nation’s largest coffee markets, including Texas (10.9%), California (4.2%), Florida (4.2%), and New York (3.5%), also experienced significant YoY upticks.
The nation’s coffee visit growth is being fueled, in large part, by chain expansions: Major coffee players are leaning into growing demand by steadily increasing their footprints. And a look at per-location foot traffic trends shows that by and large, they are doing so without significantly diluting visitation to existing stores.
On an industry-wide level, visits to coffee chains increased 5.1% YoY during the first five months of 2024. And over the same period, the average number of visits to each individual coffee location declined just slightly by 0.6% – meaning that individual stores drew just about the same amount of foot traffic as they did in 2023.
Drilling down into chain-level data shows some variation between brands. Dutch Bros., BIGGBY COFFEE and Dunkin’ all saw significant chain-wide visit boosts, accompanied by minor increases in their average number of visits per location.
Starbucks, for its part, which reported a YoY decline in U.S. sales for Q2 2024, maintained a small lag in visits per location. But given the coffee leader’s massive footprint – some 16,600 stores nationwide – its ability to expand while avoiding more significant dilution of individual store performance shows that Starbucks’ growth is meeting robust demand.
What is driving the coffee industry’s remarkable category-wide growth? And who are the customers behind it? This white paper dives into the data to explore key factors driving foot traffic to leading coffee chains in early 2024. The report explores the demographic and psychographic characteristics of visitors to major players in the coffee space and examines strategies brands can use to make the most of the opportunity presented by a thriving industry.
One factor shaping the surge in coffee visit growth is the slow-but-sure return-to-office (RTO). Hybrid work may be the post-COVID new normal – but RTO mandates and WFH fatigue have led to steady increases in office foot traffic over the past year. And in some major hubs – including New York and Miami – office visits are back to more than 80.0% of what they were pre-pandemic.
A look at shifting Starbucks visitation patterns shows that customer journeys and behavior increasingly reflect those of office-goers. In April and May 2022, for example, 18.6% of Starbucks visitors proceeded to their workplace immediately following their coffee stop – but by 2024, this share shot up to 21.0%.
Over the same period, the percentage of early morning (7:00 to 10:00 AM) Starbucks visits lasting less than 10 minutes also increased significantly – from 64.3% in 2022 to 68.7% in 2024. More customers are picking up their coffee on the go – many of them on the way to work – rather than settling down to enjoy it on-site.
Dunkin’ is another chain that is benefiting from consumers on the go. Examining the coffee giant’s performance across major regional markets – those where the chain maintains a significant presence – reveals a strong correlation between the share of Dunkin’ visits in each state lasting less than five minutes and the chain’s local YoY trajectory.
In Wisconsin, for example, 50.9% of visits to Dunkin’ between January and May 2024 lasted less than five minutes. And Wisconsin also saw the most impressive YoY visit growth (5.9%). Illinois, Ohio, Maine, and Connecticut followed similar patterns, with high shares of very short visits and strong YoY showings.
On the other end of the spectrum lay Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida, where very short visits accounted for a low share of the chain’s statewide total – under 40.% – and where visits declined YoY.
Dunkin’s success with very short visits may be driven in part by its popular app, which makes it easy for harried customers to place their order online and save time in-store. And this is good news indeed for the coffee leader – since customers using the app also tend to generate bigger tickets.
Dutch Bros.’ meteoric rise has been fueled, in part, by its appeal to younger audiences. Recently ranked as Gen Z’s favorite quick-service restaurant, the rapidly-expanding coffee chain sets itself apart with a strong brand identity built on cultivating a positive, friendly customer experience.
And Dutch Bros.’ people-centered approach is resonating especially well with singles – including young adults living alone – who may particularly appreciate the chain’s community atmosphere.
Analyzing the relative performance of Dutch Bros.’ locations across metro areas – focusing on regions where the chain has a strong local presence – shows that it performs best in areas with plenty of singles. Indeed, the share of one-person households in Dutch Bros.’ local captured markets is very strongly correlated with the coffee brand’s CBSA-level YoY per-location visit performance. Areas with higher concentrations of one-person households saw significantly more YoY visit growth in the first part of 2024. (A chain’s captured market is obtained by weighting each Census Block Group (CBG) in its trade area according to the CBG’s share of visits to the chain – and so reflects the population that actually visits the chain in practice).
The share of one-person households in Dutch Bros.’ Tucson, AZ captured market, for example, stands at 33.4% – well above the nationwide baseline of 27.5%. And between January and May 2024, Tucson-area Dutch Bros. saw a 6.0% increase in the average number of visits per location. Tulsa, OK, Medford, OR, and Oklahoma City, OK – which also feature high shares of one-person households (over 30.0%) – similarly saw per-location visit increases ranging from 3.6% - 7.0%. On the flip side, Fresno, CA, Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV, and San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX, which feature lower-than-average shares of single-person households, saw YoY per-location visit declines ranging from 1.5%-9.5%.
As Dutch Bros. forges ahead with its planned expansions, it may benefit from doubling down on this trends and focusing its development efforts on markets with higher-than-average shares of one-person households – such as university towns or urban areas with lots of young professionals.
Michigan-based BIGGBY COFFEE is another java winner in expansion mode. With a growth strategy focused on emerging markets with less brand saturation, BIGGBY has been setting its sights on small towns and rural areas throughout the Midwest and South. Though the chain does have locations in bigger cities like Detroit and Cincinnati, some of its most significant markets are in smaller population centers.
And a look at the captured markets of BIGGBY’s 20 top-performing locations in early 2024 shows that they are significantly over-indexed for suburban consumers – both compared to BIGGBY as a whole and compared to nationwide baselines. (Top-performing locations are defined as those that experienced the greatest YoY visit growth between January and May 2024).
“Suburban Boomers”, for example – a Spatial.ai: PersonaLive segment encompassing middle-class empty-nesters living in suburbs – comprised 10.6% of BIGGBY’s top captured markets in early 2024, compared to just 6.6% for BIGGBY’s overall. (The nationwide baseline for Suburban Boomers is even lower – 4.4%.) And Upper Diverse Suburban Families – a segment made up of upper-middle-class suburbanites – accounted for 9.6% of the captured markets of BIGGBY’s 20 top locations, compared to just 7.2% for BIGGBY’s as a whole, and 8.3% nationwide.
Coffee has long been one of America’s favorite beverages. And java chains that offer consumers an enjoyable, affordable way to splurge are expanding both their footprints and their audiences. By leaning into shifting work routines and catering to customers’ varying habits and preferences, major coffee players like Starbucks, Dunkin’, Dutch Bros., and BIGGBY COFFEE are continuing to thrive.
