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Quick-service restaurants (QSRs) have faced headwinds in 2024, from higher costs to increased competition. But some brands are weathering the storm particularly well. We dove into the data to check in with two of the nation’s most prominent restaurant companies – Restaurant Brands International (RBI) and Yum! Brands – to see how their biggest chains, Burger King (RBI) and Taco Bell (Yum!), performed in Q3 2024.
Burger King, RBI’s largest restaurant chain, has been the focus of a major modernization effort, dubbed the “Royal Reset”, that includes a series of restaurant remodels and equipment and technology upgrades. Burger King has also been rightsizing – closing underperforming restaurants to shore up the chain’s overall strategic positioning.
And foot traffic data shows that these initiatives are paying off. In Q3 2024, overall visits to Burger King dipped 1.7% YoY – but the average number of visits to each Burger King location increased slightly (0.4%). This per-location uptick may have been fueled, in part, by the chain’s summer “$5 Your Way” value meal special, which kept YoY visits elevated through July. And some major markets – including Texas, Illinois, Washington, and Connecticut – performed even better, with average visit-per-location growth ranging from 1.5% - 5.1% YoY.
Taco Bell is Yum! Brands’ largest chain – accounting for over 70.0% of visits to the company’s U.S. restaurants in Q3 2024. And the Tex-Mex leader is another QSR that is standing strong in 2024. Throughout the summer, Taco Bell experienced YoY visit growth ranging from 1.2% to 2.2% – and though the chain saw a minor 1.9% YoY dip in September, this may be due to the month having one fewer Friday than the equivalent period of 2023. (Friday is Taco Bell’s busiest day of the week). Even accounting for this dip, visits to Taco Bell were up 0.6% YoY overall in Q3 2024.
One factor that has likely helped Taco Bell weather recent QSR storms has been its strength in executing special promotions. In July, the Tex-Mex leader attracted big crowds with a limited-time offer commemorating the 20th anniversary of the chain’s popular Baja Blast beverage. And in October 2024, the restaurant marked National Taco Day (Tuesday, October 1st) with ten hours of $1 tacos – fueling a substantial traffic spike: On the big day, visits rose 14.7% above the chain’s daily year-to-date (YTD) average, and 18.4% above the chain’s Tuesday YTD average.
Burger King and Taco Bell found success in Q3 2024 through limited-time promotions – and in the case of the former, a strategic focus on rightsizing while updating existing stores. How will RBI and Yum!’s biggest brands perform in Q4?
Follow Placer.ai’s data-driven restaurant analyses to find out.
This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.1, which introduces a new dynamic model that stabilizes daily fluctuations in the panel, improving accuracy and alignment with external ground truth sources.
Starbucks’ preliminary fiscal Q4 2024 (July-September 2024) results--including a 10% decline in comparable transactions in its North America segment--reinforce that the company has "drifted from its core", as new Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol discussed following the release. The results also come at a time when other coffee and beverage chains are seeing year-over-year visit increases, reinforcing that new product innovations aren't connecting with consumers–management explained that “accelerated investments in an expanded range of product offerings coupled with more frequent in-app promotions and integrated marketing to entice frequency across the customer base did not improve customer behaviors.” (The difference between our visit per location figure and Starbucks’ reported number is likely due to lower coverage of urban stores in our platform).
As we wrote when Niccol assumed the CEO role in August, Starbucks’ transformation won’t happen overnight, but the data behind Niccol’s early strategies at Chipotle still hints at a successful turnaround. Niccol's plan to improve the Starbucks customer experience, remove bottlenecks and operational complexities (including a more streamlined menu), and refine Mobile Order and Pay is a sound strategy, but it will take time to implement. Positively, we believe that Starbucks has a strong foundation to work from. Below, we show the monthly visitor per location trend line since the beginning of 2022. While declines in visit frequency is something the company will work to address with its current initiatives, the number of visitors coming into each location generally remains strong (down only 2%-3% per month on average thus far in 2024). Assuming the company can execute Niccol’s plan to reduce bottlenecks and operation complexities, Starbucks’ wide visitor reach should drive improved engagement and visit frequency.
As we also pointed out a few months ago, we believe that Starbucks’ success in smaller underpenetrated markets have been somewhat overlooked. We analyzed Starbucks’ unit expansion opportunities in detail in September 2022, and we’ve seen progress on this initiative since then. Starbucks’ recent store development effects have been focused on “Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where we see population growth and forecast both underserved demand and high incrementality.” We’ve revisited our visit per location data for Starbucks’ Top 25 designated market areas (DMAs) versus non-Top 25 DMAs over the last 12 full months below, and similar to our last update, Starbucks is seeing higher visits per location in its non-Top 25 markets. Many of these non-Top 25 DMA stores have been opened in the past 12-18 months, which suggests improved metrics as operational complexities are reduced and these locations enter the same-store sales base.
Photo Image Credit: Orange County Register
We know there’s appetite for Six Flags Fright Fest, Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, Knotts’ Scary Farm, and Halloween Screams at Walt Disney World, but one innovative car wash takes you to another level, inviting you to go on a “nightmarish journey that turns an ordinary car wash into a realm of terror.” Big Wave Car Wash in Anaheim is one of the locations, and it’s immediately clear that this spooky spectacular is a hit. Compared to another local car wash competitor, we see that the addition of the scary performers nearly triples Big Wave’s traffic, especially Thursday-Sunday with the October kickoff.
We compared the Spatial.ai PersonaLive segments for Big Wave and Drive Thru Express Car Wash from January-September 2024 vs from October 1-19, 2024. In the month of October alone, we saw over 4x more visits from Near-Urban Diverse families and from Melting Pot Families to the haunted carwash compared to the entire rest of the year. Among Young Urban Singles, there was a 2.5x multiplier for just the three weeks in October compared to January-September. And while Ultra Wealthy Families normally only make up 1% of the visits, during this spooky spectacular, they accounted for 5%. Now you know where to go when junior is bored–head for the haunted car wash!
No surprise, the trade area drawn during the month of October is significantly larger as people come from a total trade area of 53 sq miles during this event (October 1-19, 2024 in red), compared to 12 sq miles the rest of the year (January-September 2024 in blue).
Over the past two weeks, the home industry has been abuzz with news from the remnants of Bed Bath & Beyond. A retailer that stood as the leader among specialty players continues to try and find new life in physical retail despite the closure of the original chain and its subsidiaries. After a year back in business, buybuy BABY, under new management, announced that it would be closing its 10 reopened locations.
Over at Beyond Inc., the new holding company for Overstock.com and the newly reformed Bed Bath & Beyond brand, they announced new partnerships with both Kirkland’s and The Container Store. The former partnership is going to help bring the brand back to physical retail with the creation of five Bed Bath & Beyond “neighborhood” small format stores, with locations to be announced; stores will be scouted, developed and operated by Kirkland’s. In the partnership with The Container Store, Beyond Inc. made a financial investment in the retailer and will allow The Container Store to leverage the brand’s assets, name, assortment and data; shop-in-shops also appear to be a part of this new partnership.
The home industry has been incredibly challenged in the post-pandemic period (below). However, as the category became further consolidated over the past few years, these new partnerships could help to revitalize all three brands, all of which have a strong brand identity with consumers. These partnerships also allow the brands to harness their strengths to benefit multiple banners.
How closely aligned are these brands? Kirkland’s tends to focus on furniture and furnishings, The Container Store handles all things organization, and the Bed Bath & Beyond brand name still carries weight as the undisputed leader in all things home.
Looking at PersonaLive’s demographic and psychographic segmentation of visitors to all three brands in 2022, before Bed Bath & Beyond’s closure the next year, there are some clear alignments and also opportunities to reach new visitors through the partnerships. Kirkland outperformed Bed Bath & Beyond with suburban cohorts such as Wealthy Suburban Families, Upper Suburban Diverse Families and Blue Collar Suburbs.
Through the lens of The Container Store, it provides a lot more opportunity for Beyond Inc. to reach higher concentrations of visitors from segments such as Ultra Wealthy Families, Educated Urbanites and Young Professionals. Looking at the partnerships with both Kirkland’s and the Container Store as a collective strategy, Beyond Inc. can capitalize on the migration to suburban communities by consumers and higher income households with the new brand.
Another positive sign for the partnerships is the high levels of cross visitation between the retailers before the closing of Bed Bath & Beyond. In 2022, Bed Bath & Beyond’s final full year of operation, 20% of visitors to Kirkland’s and almost a quarter of visitors to The Container Store cross visited Bed Bath & Beyond.
In theory, both partnerships will allow Bed Bath & Beyond to return to physical retail in alignment with both consumers and the current retail landscape. Industry specific retailers and incredibly important to the health and long term success of the industry, and the idea of welcoming back a beloved brand is exciting. It should be interesting to see the new small format stores and installations as the debut and look at the impacts of the partnership on the broader home category.
The holiday shopping season is nearly upon us – and one category that always benefits from holiday sales is apparel. So with Q4 underway, we checked in western wear leader Boot Barn and discount footwear chain DSW (Design Shoe Warehouse, owned by Designer Brands, Inc.) to see how they fared in Q3 2024 – and what awaits them as Black Friday approaches.
Boot Barn and DSW – two very different shoe retailers – have been thriving in recent months. Since May 2024, the two chains have seen sustained monthly year-over-year (YoY) visit growth, finishing out Q3 2024 with visit upticks of 10.8% (Boot Barn) and 10.5% (DSW).
For Boot Barn in particular, Q3’s robust visit growth was at least partially driven by the chain’s aggressive expansion strategy: Between July 2023 and June 2024, Boot Barn opened some 50 new stores – and plans to open dozens more over the coming year. But foot traffic data also shows that the chain has succeeded in growing its footprint without significantly diluting traffic at existing locations. During Q3, the average number of visits to each Boot Barn location dipped just slightly below 2023 levels (2.8%), even as YoY visits to the chain surged by 10.8%.
DSW, for its part saw significant YoY visit growth throughout Q3, despite a store count that has remained relatively stable. As a store that offers shoppers access to high-quality, name-brand products at affordable prices, DSW lets consumers trade down while splurging at the same time.
DSW isn’t called a warehouse for nothing. The typical DSW store spans about 25,000 square feet (though the chain has begun experimenting with smaller formats) – compared to just 12,000 - 14,000 for Boot Barn. But despite the smaller size of Boot Barn’s locations, visitors to the western wear chain tend to spend more time in-store than visitors to DSW. Since 2022, average visitor dwell times at Boot Barn have ranged between 34.9 and 35.8 minutes, while dwell times at DSW have hovered between 32.1 and 32.8 minutes.
Customers at DSW may be more likely to know in advance what they’re looking for, making a bee-line for the discounted footwear they’ve been waiting to get their hands on. Visitors to Boot Barn, on the other hand, may spend more time browsing the brand’s wider selection of merchandise.
The difference in visitor dwell times may also be partially due to Boot Barn’s firmer positioning as a weekend destination: Over the past twelve months (October 2023 - September 2024), 59.5% of visits to Boot Barn took place between Fridays and Sundays, compared to 56.3% for DSW.
Still, visitors to both chains tend to remain in-store for more than half an hour – revealing a highly engaged customer base eager to explore the brands’ varied offerings.
With a strong Q3 2024 under their belts, what can DSW and Boot Barn expect this holiday season?
Looking at weekly fluctuations in visits to Boot Barn and DSW in 2022 and 2023 – compared to yearly weekly averages – reveals another striking difference between the two chains: Visits to Boot Barn peak in November and December each year, as customers descend upon the chain to purchase western-themed gifts for loved ones. DSW, on the other hand, sees greater visit boosts in spring, perhaps buoyed by shoppers updating their wardrobes in anticipation of warmer weather.
But zooming in on the two chains’ busiest days of the year tells a somewhat different story. Even though DSW experiences a more muted holiday shopping season, the shoe leader – like Boot Barn – draws its biggest crowds of the year on Black Friday. On November 24th, 2023, visits to DSW jumped 134.5% compared to the chain’s daily average for the 12-month period from October 2023 to September 2024 – a smaller spike than that seen by Boot Barn, but significant nonetheless.
After that, however, the chain’s visitation patterns diverged. For DSW, the next eight busiest days of the year were all Saturdays in Spring – including the Saturday before Mother’s Day (May 11th) and the Saturday before Easter (March 30th). For Boot Barn, on the other hand, December shopping days – including Super Saturday (December 23rd) – drove the biggest foot traffic spikes.
With holiday shopping just around the corner, DSW and Boot Barn both appear poised to enjoy a healthy Q4 – each in their own way. Which other footwear and apparel brands are likely to succeed this holiday season?
Follow Placer.ai's data-driven retail analyses to find out.
This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.1, which introduces a new dynamic model that stabilizes daily fluctuations in the panel, improving accuracy and alignment with external ground truth sources.
Holiday shopping creep is upon us once again. Though Black Friday is still several weeks away, a shorter holiday shopping window (just 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas) has many retailers more eager than ever to get the ball rolling. And with Amazon’s October Prime Big Deal Days the focus of much consumer excitement, major brick-and-mortar players like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have launched important fall sales events of their own.
Among these pre-holiday promotions, Target’s October Circle Week stands out as a favorite, offering millions of shoppers deep discounts across a wide range of categories, from household essentials to early holiday gifts. What can location analytics tell us about how this year’s Circle Week (October 6th-12th) resonated with consumers? We dove into the data to find out.
Looking first at weekly year-over-year (YoY) visits to Target shows the power of this major sales event to get shoppers moving. Following a successful back-to-school shopping season, visits began to taper off in September. But during the week of October 7th, which included most of Circle Week, visits began to trend back upwards – perhaps signaling consumer responsiveness to early holiday discounts.
A more direct comparison between this year’s fall Target Circle Week and the one held in October 2023 (October 1st to 7th of last year) shows foot traffic up 0.7% YoY, further highlighting consumer resilience in 2024. Though the increase is a modest one, it is no small feat in a retail environment still characterized by high prices and cautious consumer sentiment.
Drilling down deeper into the data for different regions of the country paints a somewhat more nuanced picture. While in some areas of the country – particularly the Midwest and Northeast – Target Circle Week drew fewer visits this year than last (in most cases a decline of less than 3.0%), in others foot traffic increased substantially. In major southern markets like Texas and Florida, visits rose 4.2% and 3.8%, respectively. South Carolina, which has emerged as a major domestic migration hotspot in recent years, saw traffic jump an impressive 12.6%. And in California, Target’s biggest market, visits increased 1.0% YoY.
But consumer behavior during Target Circle Week doesn’t just vary across regions – it also changes throughout the week-long sale period.
In both 2023 and 2024, Target’s October Circle Week started with a bang, as eager customers flocked to the chain to get first dibs on special sale items. Visits on launch day increased 5.0% in 2023 and 4.6% in 2024, compared to a January 1st to October 13th daily visit average. Activity then tapered off during the work week, with Monday - Thursday visits hovering just below daily visit averages for those days of the week. But on Friday and Saturday, foot traffic picked up again as shoppers utilized their time off to hit the sales.
Early October holiday sales are quickly becoming de rigueur – and an important bellwether of overall Q4 performance. Target’s successful Circle Week this fall signals consumer resilience in the face of headwinds – though engagement levels varied throughout the country. How will the all-important Q4 continue to play out for brick-and-mortar retailers this year?
Follow Placer.ai’s data-driven retail analyses to find out.
This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.1, which introduces a new dynamic model that stabilizes daily fluctuations in the panel, improving accuracy and alignment with external ground truth sources.
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.
