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While the overall luxury apparel market has seen its traffic slow in recent months, Coach is seeing visit growth. The company posted an impressive 15% increase in revenue year-over-year (YoY) in Q1 2025 – and YoY visits were also elevated.
Overall foot traffic grew in all but one analyzed month of 2025, culminating in May 2025 with 7.5% YoY visit growth.
Some of Coach’s success may be tied to its positioning as an affordable luxury brand. The company has also made attracting younger, Gen Z consumers, a priority. And this focus appears to be paying off, as evidenced by its demographic and psychographic data.
Nationwide, visitors to Coach stores typically come from trade areas with a median household income (HHI) of $82.5K. While higher than the nationwide median of $79.6K, this figure remains significantly lower than the $109.3K median HHI of traditional luxury shoppers. And this disparity in income suggests that the “affordable” part of the affordable luxury retail experience is resonating.
And diving into the psychographic data for Coach’s captured market further supports this idea: visitors to Coach came from trade areas with much lower shares of “Power Elite” shoppers, defined by the Experian: Mosaic as the wealthiest households in the country. And the share of “Singles and Starters” – city-based Gen Z professionals – was higher than that of luxury shoppers.
Taken together, these data points suggest that Coach is driving success by reaching a consumer segment not typically targeted by other major luxury brands. Coach's strong performance in a challenging retail environment suggests that luxury's appeal is broader than often assumed and highlights the opportunities created by tailoring products to a wider range of consumers.
Aside from offering affordable luxuries to a wide range of shoppers, Coach also places a strong emphasis on creating compelling retail experiences. In 2023, the company introduced its interactive Coach Play stores – designed for experiential shopping – as well as Coachtopia, a new product line focused on sustainability that currently has twelve dedicated stores across the country.
And diving into the visit data for one of these Coachtopia locations suggests that, much like Coach Play stores, this retail concept encourages visitors to linger. Visitors to a Coachtopia store in The Grove, Los Angeles, stayed, on average, 30% longer than visitors to other Coach stores in California.
Visitors to the store also tended to come from trade areas where the median household income, while exceeding the nationwide median ($88.1K compared to $79.6K), was lower than that of the average Coach shopper and the average California resident. This suggests that concepts like Coachtopia are not only attracting their target audience – middle-income shoppers who value affordable luxuries – this demographic is also happy to spend more time in-store.
Coach’s success, especially in a period marked by significant challenges for the apparel and luxury markets, serves as a reminder that perceived worth can make even a luxury purchase compelling for a wide audience.
Will Coach continue to see foot traffic and visit success in the second half of the year? Visit Placer.ai/anchor for the latest data-driven retail insights.
DICK's Sporting Goods outlined a number of reasons behind its decision to acquire Foot Locker this week, including: creating a global platform in the sporting goods retail category, strengthening partnerships with suppliers, and improving its omnichannel capabilities. However, the opportunity to tap into a larger target audience strikes us as the most interesting rationale behind the acquisition, so we thought we’d take a closer look using Placer.ai data.
Foot Locker has a strong presence in malls and urban centers, coupled with its deep connection to sneaker culture and a younger, more fashion-conscious demographic. On the other hand, DICK's has traditionally attracted a broader, family-oriented sporting goods appeal and suburban footprint. Our data reflects this, with the captured market data for the DICK’s Sporting Goods banners showing higher median household income ($87.4K) relative to the Foot Locker banners ($62.3K) as well as a higher percentage of visitors with a Bachelor’s Degree and a smaller household size.
While there are a number strategic benefits for DICK's Sporting Goods acquiring Foot Locker, the significant expansion and diversification of its customer reach is paramount. For major brand partners like Nike and adidas, this unified retail entity presents a compelling advantage: access to Foot Locker's younger, urban, and fashion-forward "sneakerhead" demographic alongside DICK's established suburban consumers through a single, more influential wholesale relationship, thereby maximizing their market penetration and simplifying brand messaging across a broader spectrum of the U.S. consumer landscape. This should also allow for stronger co-marketing opportunities between the footwear brands and retailers, which is crucial in an industry where major brands are increasingly focused on direct-to-consumer strategies.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Small-format stores are all the rage. Retailers from Macy’s to IKEA are experimenting with more compact locations to save on operating costs, expand into new markets, and offer customers a more convenient, curated shopping experience.
But just how effective is this approach? Is “going small” truly the key to brick-and-mortar retail success in 2025?
We dove into the data to find out.
One chain that has successfully embraced a small-format strategy is Sprouts Farmers Market, the upscale, fresh-format grocery brand that has been steadily expanding over the past few years. Since 2022, the chain has pivoted from its traditional 30,000-32,000-square-foot stores to a more compact model of around 23,000 square feet. And location analytics suggest that this shift has been instrumental in Sprouts’ ongoing success.
In Q1 2025, the average number of visits per Sprouts location nationwide rose 4.4% year over year (YoY). But the chains’ smaller-format stores – those under 24,000 square feet – saw an even more impressive 8.8% YoY jump.
And digging into demographic data reveals that these smaller stores are helping Sprouts connect with new, urban audiences while still appealing to its core suburban customer base. Like Sprouts’ larger stores, the smaller outlets attract a higher-than-average share of “Suburban Periphery” shoppers, though less than the chain overall. But these smaller stores also draw more customers from urban areas – including shoppers from “Principal Urban Centers” that tend to be under-represented in Sprouts’ trade areas. Meanwhile, small-format Sprouts’ also attract visitors from slightly less affluent areas (though still above the nationwide median) – showing how Sprouts is expanding its audience without losing its suburban, affluent core.
Kohl’s is another chain demonstrating the potential of scaled-down stores. In 2022, the retailer announced plans to open about 100 smaller-format stores – around 35,000 square feet – a marked reduction from Kohl’s typical 80,000-square-foot footprint. And the success of Kohl’s 37,000 square-foot “concept” store in Tacoma, WA – opened in November 2022 as a testing ground for this format – showcases the promise of this approach.
The store offers a curated selection of active lifestyle products geared towards local preferences – as well as an improved self-pickup area. And location analytics suggest that the location’s offerings are resonating: The Tacoma store’s convenient set-up appears to help speed up shopping trips, as reflected by reduced dwell times. And over the past two quarters, YoY visits at the Tacoma Kohl’s have significantly outperformed other area locations.
But going small isn’t the only recipe for retail success in 2025. Some chains are finding that bigger is better – creating gigantic stores that offer an unforgettable shopping experience, and keep customers coming back.
Convenience stores are rarely known for their size – but Buc-ee’s, the Texan favorite that holds the record for the largest c-store in the world, is the exception that proves the rule. Many of Buc-ee’s locations exceed 70,000 square feet. And over the past 12 months, Buc-ee’s has enjoyed consistent YoY visit growth, even as the broader category has languished. The massive c-store’s over-the-top offerings, from homemade fudge to Beaver Nuggets, have cemented Buc-ee’s reputation as a destination in its own right.
Supersized store formats have also fueled success in the recreational and sporting goods space. Dick’s House of Sport, Bass Pro Shop, and other chains have invested in expansive, experiential stores meant to serve as community hubs for sports fans and outdoor enthusiasts. And expanding Midwestern and Mountain State brand Scheels is emerging as a benchmark for this approach.
Roughly half of Scheels stores span at least 200,000 square feet, featuring attractions like Ferris wheels, massive saltwater aquariums, shooting galleries, archery lanes, and more. Unsurprisingly, these entertainment-oriented spaces draw more weekend crowds than other sporting goods stores. The chain has also grown its audience, outperforming the wider sector for YoY visit growth.
The takeaway? There’s no single formula for retail success in 2025. But whether scaled-down and curated or grandiose and experiential, retail chains that intentionally and creatively leverage their physical spaces to engage audiences will continue to thrive.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit Placer.ai.
So far, 2025 has completely shifted the retail industry away from its status quo. Sectors that appeared to be on the rise at the end of 2024 have seen a stall in momentum, while others that faced challenging terrain last year have found some new opportunities. Economic uncertainty and changes in consumer sentiment have pushed consumers to be even more value oriented than we observed over the last two years.
Consumers are also looking to prepare themselves appropriately for future headwinds; in many cases this change is reflected in the types of retailers shopped. One sector of non-discretionary retail that had been at the forefront of this trend over the past few years has been dollar & discount chains. This group of retailers benefited from increasing inflationary pressures and an enhanced consumer focus on value. Beyond changing consumer behaviors, the sector also expanded the number of store locations and range of communities covered across the country, which brought more value-centered options to shoppers beyond superstores.
Last year (2024) represented a shift in the dollar & discount category, with visitation decelerating throughout the year according to Placer’s foot traffic estimates. Market saturation, challenges within individual chains, and the constriction of buying power among lower income households all contributed to a year that wasn’t up to expectations. However, 2025 has proven to be a new opportunity for chains to regain their footing with consumers.
Year-to-date, the industry is running up 3% in visits compared to the same period last year; while this isn’t necessarily far off the trends in 2024, it certainly is outperforming other non-discretionary sectors. Looking at the performance by retail chain reveals that Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Five Below are all overperforming the total category as well.
One trend that has continued from 2024 for top performing chains is consumer loyalty. Dollar General and Dollar Tree have seen an increase in loyal visitors, defined as visiting three or more times per month, compared to last year. Dollar General specifically also has a very high level of loyal visitors, with 36% of visitors shopping three times per month. Dollar stores fill a distinct need in shoppers’ retail rolodex, and especially as chains focus on expanding their assortments, the value proposition for customers becomes further cemented.
Dollar chains are primed to be an asset to consumers as economic and financial uncertainty continues, but consumers may also continue to be more discerning overall. Dollar chains must continue to innovate and expand assortments, particularly in grocery, to stay competitive as warehouse clubs and superstores also vie for attention.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
The drugstore and pharmacy space has faced significant challenges in recent years, and recently, Rite Aid announced that it would be closing all its locations. We took a look at the location intelligence for Rite Aid and the chains buying its closing locations to see how this closure might affect visits to the other chains.
The past few years have seen a dramatic shift in the way people purchase their prescriptions and other health-related sundries – and Rite Aid, in particular, was heavily affected by this shift. The chain had made several attempts over the past few years to rightsize and restructure in hopes of turning around its fortunes. But in May 2025, amidst bankruptcy proceedings, the company announced it would be closing all of its remaining locations and selling its business – primarily to CVS Pharmacy, with some going to Walgreens, Albertsons, Kroger, and Giant Eagle.
Rite Aid had already spent much of 2023 and 2024 closing stores, a factor that certainly fueled its 37.2% year-over-year (YoY) dip in foot traffic in Q1 2025. Meanwhile, CVS – which has also been closing stores – saw its visits and visits per location grow in Q1 2025, by 2.6% and 5.1%, respectively. And Walgreens, in the midst of its own rightsizing moves, experienced relatively flat visit numbers, with only minor YoY dips.
CVS is poised to be a major beneficiary of Rite Aid’s closure, taking over business from hundreds of its locations. And a look at demographic and psychographic data shows that the move stands to offer CVS greater access to older consumers – a key demographic in the pharmacy space. Rite Aid’s stores also attract a more middle-income shopper, helping to broaden CVS’ customer base.
A look at geographic segmentation data shows that CVS’s assumption of Rite Aid business will also grant it greater inroads into semirural and urban audiences.
Rite Aid has its largest presence in California (347 stores), Pennsylvania (345 locations), and New York (178 stores). And data from Esri: Tapestry Segmentation highlights differences in where shoppers at the two drugstore chains tend to come from – both nationwide and in its major markets.
CVS sees higher shares of “Suburban Periphery” visitors in all the analyzed markets, while Rite Aid sees higher shares of “Semirural” visitor segments, both nationwide and across its largest markets. This reinforces that CVS stands to significantly expand its footprint in less dense, semi-rural communities by acquiring Rite Aid assets.
While some common threads can be seen across visitor types by state, there are also notable differences, highlighting the importance of diversification across geographic segments for comprehensive market coverage. For instance, in New York, Rite Aid holds a higher share of visitors from “Principal Urban Centers” (18.8%) than CVS (13.3%). This suggests CVS may be able to expand both its semirural and urban reach as it assumes Rite Aid's former customer base.
Rite Aid’s closure highlights the challenges facing the retail healthcare segment – but it also opens up new opportunities for other chains as they absorb these closed stores.
What will the retail pharmacy and healthcare segment look like in the coming months? Visit Placer.ai/anchor for the latest data-driven retail insights.
First Eataly opened introducing patrons to the delights of freshly made pasta, mozzarella, and delectable ragu. With its all-in-one grocery and food hall appeal, one could savor delicacies from different regions of Italy. Jose Andres also raised the bar with his Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards, transporting you to Spain with its jamon iberico, crowd favorite Jaleo, and a host of Spanish restaurants. Now we cross culinary continents over to Asia as Jagalchi Food Hall and Grocery Store opens at Serramonte Center in Daly City, to the joy of aficionados of Korean food.
At 75,000 sq ft, Jagalchi takes over a former JCPenney store. Inside, separate seafood, meat, and produce areas await. The butcher offers high-end meats like Japanese A5 wagyu ribeye. At the oyster bar, one can find oysters and sushi. For those wanting hot food, snacks like freshly fried Korean pancakes, fried potato swirls, rose tteokboki and mandu (meat dumplings) are available for purchase.
In the middle of the store is a Michelin starred restaurant, Pogu, where diners can choose from authentic Korean dishes with a contemporary twist, such as eel bibimbap, seafood and tofu hotpot, and buckwheat noodles.
To further enhance the feeling of a jaunt to Korea, K-pop music wafts through the air and a large selection of K-beauty is available to peruse. Shoppers note the modern interior and trendy vibe with some calling it the Erewhon of Korean grocery stores. To add to the experiential feeling, there are carts labeled with street food that give you that Asian night-market alley feeling. And to complete the culinary experience, Jagalchi offers a wide variety of sool, or Korean rice wines, such as makgeolli or soju.
No meal would be complete without dessert and Jagalchi has an onsite bakery, Basquia, which features rice-flour baked goodies. Crowd pleasers include strawberry sulpang, made of a special sweet and fluffy bread with hints of rice wine flavoring, as well as the latest viral sensation, Dubai chocolate. Another cross-cultural sweet treat is the Su Jeong Gwa latte w/oat milk, which basically is a Korean horchata.
Jagalchi opened on March 28, 2025 (Friday), and the first Saturday, March 29, 2025 resulted in a 60% visitation increase compared to Saturday, Jan 4, 2025. The hype has died down a bit, but overall traffic visitation levels are averaging at least 30% higher on Saturdays compared to pre-opening.
Whereas Serramonte Center was facing declining year-over-year visit trends in the first quarter of the year, the opening of Jagachi has provided a jolt of excitement for the shopping center, putting it into positive year-over-year traffic for the last month.
An additional benefit for Serramonte Center is that Jagachi is attracting a higher proportion of wealthy segments, such as Educated Urbanites and Ultra Wealthy Families, which could potentially result in additional cross-shopping among patrons with more disposable income.
In closing, as shopping centers experiment with new tenants for anchor closures for department stores, opportunity awaits with new brands and concepts such as experiential food halls and grocery stores.
For more data-driven retail and dining insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
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.
Note: This report is based on an analysis of visitation patterns for regional and nationwide grocery chains and does not include single-location stores.
Grocery stores, superstores, and dollar stores all carry food products – and American consumers buy groceries at all three. But even in today’s crowded food retail environment, traditional grocery chains have a special role to play. With their primary focus on stocking a wide variety of fresh foods, these chains serve a critical function in offering consumers access to healthy options.
But visualizing the footprints of major grocery chains across the continental U.S. – alongside those of discount & dollar stores – shows that the geographical distribution of grocery chains remains uneven.
In some areas, including parts of the Northeast, Midwest, South Atlantic, and Pacific regions, grocery chains are plentiful. But in others – some with population centers large enough to feature a robust dollar store presence – they remain in short supply.
And though many superstore locations also provide a full array of grocery offerings, they, too, are often sparsely represented in areas with low concentrations of grocery chains.
For grocery chain operators seeking to expand, these underserved grocery markets can present a significant opportunity. And for civic stakeholders looking to broaden access to healthy food across communities, these areas highlight a policy challenge. For both groups, identifying underserved markets with significant untapped demand can be a critical first step in deciding where to focus grocery development initiatives.
This white paper dives into the location analytics to examine grocery store availability across the United States – and harnesses these insights to explore potential demand in some underserved markets. The report focuses on locations belonging to regional or nationwide grocery chains, rather than single-location stores.
Last year, grocery chains accounted for 43.4% of nationwide visits to food retailers – including grocery chains, superstores, and discount & dollar stores. But drilling down into the data for different areas of the country reveals striking regional variation – offering a glimpse into the variability of grocery store access throughout the U.S. In some states, grocery stores attract the majority of visit share to food retailers, while in others, dollar stores or superstores dominate the scene.
The ten states where residents were most likely to visit grocery chains in early 2024 – Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Massachusetts, California, Maryland, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island – were all on the East or West Coasts. In these states, as well as in Nevada and New York, grocery chain visits accounted for 50.0% or more of food retail visits between January and April 2024.
Meanwhile, residents of many West North Central and South Central states were much less likely to do their food shopping at grocery chains. In North Dakota, for example, grocery chain visits accounted for just 11.7% of visits to food retailers over the analyzed period. And in Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, too, grocery stores drew less than 20.0% of the overall food retail foot traffic.
But low grocery store visit share does not necessarily indicate a lack of consumer interest or ability to support such stores. And in some of these underserved regions, existing grocery chains are seeing outsize visit growth – indicating growing demand for their offerings.
North Dakota, the state with the smallest share of visits going to grocery chains in early 2024, experienced a 9.1% year-over-year (YoY) increase in grocery visits during the same period – nearly double the nationwide baseline of 5.7%. Other states with low grocery visit share, including Nebraska, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and New Mexico, also experienced higher-than-average YoY grocery chain visit growth. This suggests significant untapped potential for grocery stores and a market that is hungry for more.
Alabama is one state where grocery chains accounted for a relatively small share of overall food retail foot traffic in early 2024 (just 28.9%) – but where YoY visit growth outperformed the nationwide average. And digging down even further into local grocery store visitation trends provides further evidence that at least in some places, low grocery visit share may be due to inadequate supply, rather than insufficient demand.
In Central Alabama, for example, many residents drive at least 10 miles to reach a local grocery chain. And several parts of the state, both rural and urban, feature clusters of grocery stores that draw customers from relatively far away.
But zooming in on YoY visitation data for local grocery chain locations shows that at least some of these areas likely harbor untapped demand. Take for example the Camden, Butler, Thomasville, and Gilbertown areas (circled in the map above). The Piggly Wiggly location in Butler, AL, drew 40.1% of visits from 10 or more miles away. The same store experienced a 23.3% YoY increase in visits in early 2024 – far above the statewide baseline of 6.6%. Meanwhile, the Super Foods location in Thomasville, AL, which drew 52.8% of visits from at least 10 miles away – experienced YoY visit growth of 12.3%. The Piggly Wiggly locations in Camden, AL and Gilbertown, AL saw similar trends.
At the same time, trade area analysis of the four locations reveals that the grocery stores had little to no trade area overlap during the analyzed period. Each store served specific areas, with minimal cannibalization among customer bases.
These metrics appear to highlight robust demand for grocery stores in the region – grocery visits are growing at a stronger rate than those in the overall state, people are willing to make the drive to these stores, and each one has little to no competition from the others.
While significant opportunity exists across the country, many communities still face considerable challenges in supporting large grocery stores. Though South Carolina has a significant number of grocery chain locations, for example, certain areas within the state have low access to food shopping opportunities. And one local government – Greenville County – is considering offering tax breaks to grocery stores that set up shop in the area, to improve local fresh food accessibility.
Placer.ai migration and visitation data shows that Greenville County is ripe for such initiatives: the county’s population grew by 4.8% over the past four years – with much of that increase a result of positive net migration. And YoY visits to Greenville County Grocery Stores have consistently outperformed state averages: In April 2024, grocery visits in the county grew by 6.1% YoY, while overall visits to grocery stores in South Carolina grew by 4.2%. This growth – both in terms of grocery visits and population – points to rising demand for grocery stores in Greenville County.
Analyzing the Greenville County grocery store trade areas with Spatial.ai’s FollowGraph dataset – which looks at the social media activity of a given audience – offers further insight into local grocery shoppers’ particular demand and preferences.
Consumers in Greenville-area grocery store trade areas, for example, are more likely to be interested in “Mid-Range Grocery Stores” (including brands like Aldi, Kroger, and Lidl) than residents of grocery store trade areas in the state as a whole. This metric provides further evidence of local demand for grocery chains – and offers a glimpse into the kinds of specific grocery offerings likely to succeed in the area.
Grocery stores remain essential services for many consumers, providing a place to pick up fresh produce, meat, and other healthy food options. And many areas in the country are ripe for expansion, with eager customer bases and growing demand. Identifying such areas with location analytics can help both grocery store operators and municipal stakeholders provide their communities and customer bases with an enhanced grocery shopping experience that caters to local preferences.
Following COVID-era highs, domestic migration levels have begun to taper off – with the number of Americans moving within the U.S. hitting an all-time low, according to some sources, in 2023.
To be sure, some popular COVID-era destinations – including Idaho, the Carolinas, and Utah – saw their net domestic migration continue to rise, albeit at a slower pace. But other states which had been relocation hotspots between February 2020 and February 2023, such as Wyoming and Texas, experienced negative net migration between February 2023 and February 2024.
Analyzing CBSA-level migration data reveals differences and similarities between last year’s migration patterns and COVID-era trends.
Between February 2020 and February 2023, seven out of the ten CBSAs posting the largest population increases due to inbound domestic migration were located in Florida. But between February 2023 and February 2024, the top 10 CBSAs with the largest net migrated percent of the population were significantly more diverse. Only four out of the ten CBSAs were located in Florida, and several new metro areas – including Provo-Orem, UT, Kingsport-Bristol, TN-VA, and Boulder, CO – joined the list.
This white paper leverages a variety of location intelligence tools – including Placer.ai’s Migration Report, Niche Neighborhood Grades, and ACS Census Data location intelligence – to analyze two migration hotspots. Specifically, the report focuses on Daytona Beach, FL, which already appeared on the February 2020 to February 2023 list and has continued to see steady growth, and Boulder, CO, which has emerged as a new top destination. The data highlights the potential of CBSAs with unique value propositions to continue to attract newcomers despite ongoing housing headwinds.
The Boulder, CO CBSA has emerged as a domestic migration hotspot: The net influx of population between February 2023 and February 2024 (i.e. the total number of people that moved to Boulder from elsewhere in the U.S., minus those that left) constituted 3.1% of the CBSA’s February 2024 population.
The strong migration is partially due to the University of Colorado, Boulder’s growing popularity. But the metro area has also emerged as a flourishing tech hub, with Google, Apple, and Amazon all setting up shop in town, along with a wealth of smaller start ups.
Most domestic relocators tend to remain within state lines – so unsurprisingly, many of the recent newcomers to Boulder moved from other CBSAs in Colorado. But perhaps due to Boulder’s robust tech ecosystem, many of the new residents also came from Los Angeles, CA (6.6%) and San Francisco, CA (3.4%) – other CBSAs known for their thriving tech scenes.
At the same time, looking at the other CBSAs feeding migration to the area indicates that tech is likely not the only draw attracting people to Boulder: A significant share of relocators came from the CBSAs of Chicago, IL (6.1%), Dallas , TX (4.9%), and New York, NY (3.9%). The move from these relatively urbanized CBSAs to scenic Boulder indicates that some of the domestic migration to the area is likely driven by people looking for better access to nature or a general lifestyle change.
According to the U.S. News & World Report, Boulder ranked in second place in terms of U.S. cities with the best quality of life. Using Niche Neighborhood Grades to compare quality of life attributes in the Boulder CBSA and in the areas of origin dataset highlights some of the draw factors attracting newcomers to Boulder beyond the thriving tech scene.
The Boulder CBSA ranked higher than the metro areas of origin for “Public Schools,” “Health & Fitness,” “Fit for Families,” and “Access to Outdoor Activities.” These migration draw factors are likely helping Boulder attract more senior executives alongside younger tech workers – and can also explain why relocators from more urban metro areas may be choosing to make Boulder their home.
Boulder’s strong inbound migration numbers over the past year – likely driven by its flourishing tech scene and beautiful natural surroundings – reveal the growth potential of certain CBSAs regardless of wider housing market headwinds.
Florida experienced a population boom during the pandemic, and several CBSAs in the state – including the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL CBSA – have continued to welcome domestic relocators in high numbers. The CBSA’s anchor city, Daytona Beach – known for its Bike Week and NASCAR’s Daytona 500 – has also seen positive net migration between February 2023 and February 2024.
Americans planning for retirement or retirees operating on a fixed income are likely particularly interested in optimizing their living expenses. And given Daytona’s relative affordability, it’s no surprise that the median age in the areas of origin feeding migration to Daytona Beach tends to be on the older side.
According to the 2021 Census ACS 5-Year Projection data, the median age in Daytona Beach was 39.0. Meanwhile, the weighted median age in the areas of migration origin was 42.6, indicating that those moving to Daytona Beach may be older than the current residents of the city.
Zooming into the migration data on a zip code level also highlights Daytona Beach’s appeal to older Americans: The zip code welcoming the highest rates of domestic migration was 32124, home to both Jimmy Buffet’s Latitude Margaritaville’s 55+ community and the LPGA International Golf Club, host of the LPGA Tour. The median age in this zip code is also older than in Daytona Beach as a whole, and the weighted age in the zip codes of origin was even higher – suggesting that older Americans and retirees may be driving much of the migration to the area.
Looking at the migration draw factors for Daytona Beach also suggests that the city is particularly appealing to retirees, with the city scoring an A grade for its “Fit for Retirees.” But the city of Daytona Beach is also an attractive destination for anyone looking to elevate their leisure time, with the city scoring higher than Daytona Beach’s cities of migration origin for “Weather,” “Access to Restaurants,” or “Access to Nightlife.”
Like Boulder, Daytona’s scenery – including its famous beaches – is likely attracting newcomers looking to spend more time outdoors and improve their work-life balance. And like Boulder and its tech scene, Daytona Beach also has an extra pull factor – its affordability and fit for older Americans – that is likely helping the area continue to attract new residents, even as domestic migration slows down nationwide.
Although the overall pace of domestic migration has slowed, analyzing location intelligence data reveals several migration hotspots amidst the overall cooldown. Boulder and Daytona Beach each have a set of unique draw factors that seem to attract different populations – and the success of these regions highlights the many paths to migration growth in 2024.
