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American Dream hosted the first ever JonasCon on March 23rd, 2025. How did the event impact visitation trends, and what does the success of JonasCon mean for the future of malls? We dove into the data to find out.
American Dream has emphasized the experiential potential of malls from its inception. The massive shopping, dining, and leisure venue includes a vast array of indoor and outdoor entertainment facilities such as a water park, an indoor ski slope, and an aquarium as well as numerous stores and restaurants. And although the mall – which opened just before the COVID pandemic – has dealt with its share of setbacks, recent data suggests that American Dream has turned a corner, with leasing picking up and year-over-year quarterly visits positive throughout 2024.
American Dream’s position as both a mall and an entertainment complex along with its location in New Jersey – the Jonas Brothers’ home state – made it the natural choice to host JonasCon, a one-day fan convention on March 23rd, 2025 celebrating the band’s twentieth anniversary.
The event proved to be a major success, with visits to American Dream surging 146.5% higher than the YTD average and 72.8% higher than a YTD Sunday. Visitors during JonasCon also stayed significantly longer in the mall, with the average visit on March 23rd lasting 220 minutes – almost four hours – compared to an average stay of 141 minutes for the YTD.
The JonasCon visit spike was driven in part by own-of-towners making the trip especially for the event. On March 23rd, over 25% of visitors to American Dream came from at least 50 miles away, compared to just 17.9% of visitors coming from 50+ miles away for the YTD average. The surge in overall visits, the extended dwell time, and the significant influx of out-of-towners directly translated to increased opportunities for spending across the entire venue.
The event also seems to have attracted more singles from more affluent households compared to American Dream’s regular visitor base: The mall’s trade area on March 23rd included fewer households with children and more one person and non-family households compared to the YTD average, and the trade area median household income (HHI) stood at $93.0K compared to the $89.9K median HHI for the YTD.
The popularity of JonasCon among the coveted demographic of affluent singles highlights how malls can target certain audiences by organizing specific happenings. Most malls offer something for everyone – American Dream in particular has a range of offerings for different age groups and at different price points, including a variety of free exhibits. But while providing options for almost any consumer creates the potential for a large and varied visitor base, certain demographics might need an extra nudge to come through the door for the first time. Offering unique experiences can help malls bring in certain groups of consumers that may be underrepresented in the mall’s regular visitor base – perhaps fostering return visits and growing their regular audience.
Through JonasCon, American Dream has once again cemented its position at the forefront of the experiential mall movement. The venue represents a broader trend as some malls evolve beyond transactional spaces to become centers of shared experience – whether through built-in elements or by offering unique experiences through one-off entertainment and events.
The success of JonasCon along with the ongoing visit growth at American Dream highlights the current consumer appetite for exciting and engaging offline experiences – and malls are extremely well positioned to meet this demand.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai.
Dollar Tree's recently announced plan to sell Family Dollar at a significant loss is another sign of the recent struggles in the discount and dollar store sector, highlighted by last year’s closure of 99 Cents Only and Big Lots' bankruptcy filing. We dove into the data to understand what is driving Dollar Tree’s decision and what this means for Family Dollar moving forward.
The discount & dollar store category had been on the rise before the pandemic, and COVID gave the segment another considerable boost – in part thanks to discount and dollar stores’ designation as “essential retailers” that could remain open during lockdowns. Category leaders Dollar General and Dollar Tree continued their aggressive fleet expansions to meet the growing consumer demand, which led to a substantial overall increase in visits to the category.
But zooming in on 2024 data suggests that visit growth to the category is slowing down. Although discount & dollar stores are holding on to their pandemic gains – traffic to the segment is still 57.8% higher than it was in 2017 – year-over-year (YoY) growth is slowing, with 2024 visits up 2.8% compared to 2023, in contrast to 2022 and 2023’s YoY jumps of 7.8% and 7.7%, respectively.
This deceleration of growth is not in itself worrisome – no retail category can sustain rapid growth indefinitely. But the visit trends do signal that discount & dollar store leaders seeking an edge over the competition will need to adopt more strategic approaches and avoid allocating resources to overly risky ventures.
Overall visits to the Dollar Tree brand were already on the rise prior to COVID and skyrocketed over the pandemic – leading to a 60.1% increase in overall visits between 2017 and 2024. But, like with the wider category, traffic growth to Dollar Tree seems to be decelerating – the banner posted a 5.4% YoY increase in visits in 2024 compared to a 13.9% YoY increase in 2023.
But Family Dollar lagged behind, apparently immune to the COVID-driven dollar store visit surge. Traffic to the chain in 2024 was down 4.0% YoY and just 3.6% higher than it was in 2017. And although Dollar Tree’s decision to close nearly 1000 Family Dollar stores appears to be bearing fruit – in 2024, average visits per venue were up 1.7% YoY and 16.9% relative to the 2017 baseline – the improvement seems to have been insufficient to prevent the banner’s sale.
Family Dollar has faced plenty of difficulties in the last several years, so it’s difficult to attribute Dollar Tree’s offloading of the banner to a single factor. Still, one major element that likely hurt the brand’s performance was the intensified competition from other discount and dollar store leaders – including from sister banner Dollar Tree.
Family Dollar visitors have always been keen Walmart shoppers – since 2019, over 90% of Family Dollar yearly visitors also visited Walmart, and these cross-visit trends have remained relatively stable over the past six years. Other dollar stores were not always as popular with Family Dollar shoppers – in 2019, less than two-thirds of Family Dollar visitors also visited a Dollar Tree or a Dollar General. But as those chains grew, so did their appeal to Family Dollar shoppers – by 2024, over three-quarters of Family Dollar visitors also visited Dollar Tree or Dollar General – and this increased competition likely hampered Family Dollar’s growth.
Still, despite the increasingly competitive discount and dollar store space, analyzing Family Dollar’s trade area composition reveals that the chain fills a unique niche within the broader discount retail sector.
Family Dollar tends to attract the least affluent visitor base – the median household income (HHI) in the chain’s captured market trade area is $53.9K, compared to $67.6K, $61.8K, and $68.7K for Walmart, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree, respectively. Family Dollar’s captured market also includes the highest share of urban areas, with 36.9% of its trade area defined as “Urban Periphery” or “Principal Urban Center” by the Esri: Tapestry Segmentation database.
Family Dollar can draw on its distinctive position as an urban-based retailer catering to value-seeking consumers to set itself apart from the competition and lay the groundwork for a successful resurgence.
Although Family Dollar was sold at a substantial discount from its original purchase price, the chain still has a promising opportunity to re-establish itself as a powerful contender in the discount retail landscape. By prioritizing locations in urban areas that are less exposed to direct competition from the other major players and keeping its prices competitive with those of other dollar and discount retailers, Family Dollar can lay the groundwork for a successful resurgence.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai
Consumers have been taking stock of their habits and behaviors over the past few years. With the explosion of semaglutide medications in the market and the high frequency of adoption by consumers, there’s a renewed focus on health and wellness across the U.S. population that extends to other consumption behaviors. One of the outcomes of this change in perspective is the increased scrutiny around the consumption of alcoholic beverages – especially among younger consumers.
At the same time, alcohol consumption increased handily during the pandemic, which has helped liquor stores and retail chains to stand out from the rest of the retail industry. As we hit the five year anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic, it’s time to dive deeper into the Bev Alc space to uncover new trends, changes with consumer engagement, and potential headwinds for the industry.
Liquor store chains benefited greatly from shifts in behavior during the pandemic, and for the most part, they’ve been able to sustain those levels of success over the past few years. However, 2024 signaled a deceleration of foot traffic growth across chains, particularly in the second half of the year.
Bev Alc had been a visitation leader in the essential side of the retail industry in the early days of the pandemic, and the category continued to benefit greatly from sustained levels of alcohol consumption even after pandemic restrictions eased. But as with all pandemic-era consumer habits, as we approach the five year anniversary, reversal of some trends are taking shape: While year-over-year visits continued to rise in 2024, last year’s 4.0% average increase in monthly visits was significantly less than the 8.6%, 9.1%, 7.1%, or 6.7% average increases in monthly visits in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively.
There are also various factors that could potentially impact the industry this year: Decreased consumption of alcohol that could have played a role in 2024’s softening of visits is likely to continue in 2025, and potential tariffs on popular spirits like Tequila and Mezcal may impact consumer preferences going forward.
From a retailer perspective, Spec’s posted the strongest visit performance while BevMo! had the most challenging 2024 of the larger liquor retail chains, although most chains experienced some softening in foot traffic throughout the year. Bev Alc retail is a notoriously regional and local category, meaning that changes in foot traffic by chain are often impacted by what’s going on in a specific region of the U.S. BevMO! services Arizona, California and Washington, so the chain’s modest performance may point to some decreases in demand across the western part of the country. Meanwhile, Spec’s operates primarily in Texas, and its consistent YoY visit growth throughout 2024 may suggest that the shift in alcohol consumption habits has been more muted in the Lone Star State.
With the broader context of what’s going on across the category analyzed, what’s really driving these changes in visitation to liquor stores? As referenced, there’s been a narrative that younger consumers’ changing alcohol consumption habits will greatly impact the Bev Alc space.
But layering Spatial.ai’s Personalive demographic and psychographic visitor segmentation onto liquor store’s captured market reveals a slightly more nuanced reality. The data shows that between 2019 and 2024, the share of wealthier families and of Educated Urbanites – a younger, well-educated, and more affluent cohort – in the captured market of liquor stores. During the same period, the share of Young Professionals and Young Urban Singles – both segments of younger visitors have lower median household incomes than Educated Urbanites – actually increased.
What the data reveals is that we can’t build a singular narrative around the alcohol habits of all younger consumers; there’s also a layer of socioeconomics that has also impacted consumers' desire to frequent liquor stores and engage in alcohol consumption. This knowledge may also contribute to the changes we’ve seen in BevMo!’s business, as their highest shares of visitation come from wealthier families and Educated Urbanites.
Foot traffic estimates also reveal that consumers have shifted the time of day that they visit liquor store chains. In 2024, we observed a higher share of visits after 3 PM compared to 2019, with the largest penetration shift coming between the hours of 6 PM to 8 PM. Consumers are visiting liquor stores more frequently after working hours than before the pandemic, which underscores the shifting role of alcohol in people’s lives. Our data also indicated a higher distribution of visits during weekdays in 2024 compared to 2019, but a lower share of weekend visits.
Liquor store visit frequency contextualizes the changes that we’ve observed in consumption habits, highlighting that, despite the increased interest in moderating drinking habits, the pandemic did fundamentally shift how people engage with the category and alcohol retail has become more of a presence in consumers’ weekly routines.
As the cultural perception of alcohol shifts, changes are likely to occur across the industry. We’ve observed more liquor brands opening bars and drinking establishments to engage directly with consumers, while there’s also still a continued rise in local and regional brands popping up. Another area that has been growing steadily over the past few years is non-alcoholic beverages. The aisles of grocery stores and liquor stores are now filled with non-alcoholic alternatives of brand names, as well as mocktail entrants into wildly popular canned cocktails. Beyond that, there’s also been an increase in the number of non-alcoholic bottle shops, and the prevalence of non-alcoholic options will likely continue to grow and extend to other areas of the country outside of major cities. The Bev Alc industry is at a true crossroads with consumers, and consumer behavior will dictate how the industry must evolve to stay relevant.
The apparel space has faced considerable headwinds in recent years – from changing consumer preferences to cutbacks in discretionary spending. We dove into the data for various apparel categories to explore emerging industry trends and see what foot traffic patterns can tell us about the state of apparel in 2025.
Consumers’ emphasis on value and the excitement of a constantly changing inventory have significantly impacted the apparel space in recent years – and off-price chains and thrift stores are reaping the benefits.
Between 2019 and 2024, off-price and thrift store chains claimed growing shares of the overall apparel visit pie. Off-price’s visit share jumped from 28.1% in 2019 to 35.1% in 2024, while thrift’s increased from 9.4% to 12.2%. And while this growth came at the expense of traditional department stores and general apparel chains, the relative visit share of our luxury segment remained relatively stable – likely due to its more affluent and less value-seeking clientele.
The activewear and athleisure segment, for its part, has followed a more nuanced path in recent years. The activewear and athleisure segment saw relative visit share growth during the pandemic (between 2019 and 2021), as home workout routines and comfortable clothing became the norm. But in 2022, the category began to revert to its pre-pandemic visit share, likely due to the return of in-person gatherings and return-to-office trends.
Analysis of yearly visits to various apparel categories provides further insight into their foot traffic trajectories.
Since 2021, off-price visits have steadily increased compared to 2019, while thrift store visits have consistently outperformed 2019 levels since 2022. This indicates that the off-price and thrift segments are experiencing absolute visit growth alongside increased relative visit share.
However, over the last four years, visits to traditional department stores and general apparel retailers have consistently underperformed 2019 baselines – while luxury retailers have seen visits decline even as they have maintained relative visit share stability. Meanwhile, following three years of visits above 2019 levels, activewear and athleisure visits have begun to decline, dipping below the 2019 benchmark in 2024.
Diving into the audience demographics in the apparel space reveals several trends behind the growth of the off-price and thrift segments.
In 2024, compared to the other apparel categories, off-price had the largest share of large households (3+ people) within its captured market* (42.1%), while thrift stores had the smallest share (39.0%). This could mean that off-price chains resonate with families seeking budget-friendly staples, whereas thrift stores appeal to singles hunting for unique items.
*A category’s captured market is derived by the census block groups (CBGs) from which retailers draw their visitors weighted by the share of visits from each, and thus reflects the population that visits the category.
Diving deeper into consumer behavior in the apparel space reveals additional visitation trends in the off-price and thrift categories.
Of the analyzed apparel categories, off-price had the longest average visit duration in 2024, followed closely by thrift. Though off-price and thrift formats share a treasure-hunting environment, off-price's higher proportion of larger households may contribute to longer dwell times, as visitors shop for multiple family members at once. Still, thrift store visitors, likely to come from small households, seem to spend significant time treasure-hunting for their own wardrobes. Activewear and athleisure, meanwhile, saw the shortest average dwell time – likely driven by customers who go into the stores knowing exactly what they want.
And of the apparel categories analyzed, thrift had the largest share of weekday visits (Monday - Friday) in 2024, perhaps since its visitors are more likely to be singles and young couples free of family commitments after work or retirees with weekday availability. Still, off-price also had a relatively elevated share of weekday visitors compared to most apparel categories, suggesting that visitors juggling family-driven schedules view off-price shopping as an errand rather than a recreational activity.
Consumer preferences for value and unique finds are reshaping the apparel retail landscape, driving substantial growth in the off-price and thrift segments. While traditional retail models face challenges, understanding these shifts in consumer behaviors and demographics is key to finding success in this dynamic environment.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit Placer.ai.
CVS and Walgreens, the two largest drugstore chains in the country, have faced increased competition from superstores and online platforms in recent years. To adapt, both chains are optimizing their brick-and-mortar footprints – and Walgreens is going private following its recent acquisition by Sycamore Partners.
We took a look at the two chains’ visit performance to see what lies ahead for each.
CVS and Walgreens command a major portion of drugstore visits nationwide – and their foot traffic data sheds light on how each is weathering heightened competition. CVS, which consolidated its fleet between 2022 and 2024, saw both overall visits (+0.6%) and average visits per location (+2.9%) elevated YoY in Q4 2024, suggesting that these store closures have helped bolster the chain.
Walgreens, which also closed a significant number of stores over the past two years, saw overall foot traffic lag slightly throughout 2024. However, average visits per location to the chain were up in all but one quarter of the year, suggesting that Walgreen’s rightsizing moves are having a positive impact on the chain, directing more traffic to higher-performing locations.
These patterns held into 2025, with CVS enjoying elevated YoY visits in all weeks analyzed, while Walgreens visits remained, for the most part, slightly below 2024 levels. Walgreens recently announced a definitive agreement to be acquired by private equity firm Sycamore Partners, and while the impact of this deal remains to be seen, it could create opportunities for innovation and strategic transformation.
CVS and Walgreens are major players in the pharmacy space, controlling the lion’s share of offline pharmacy visits (excluding general and grocery retailers with on-site pharmacies such as Walmart and Kroger.) And even as the two chains have reduced their footprints, their overall market presence has expanded – perhaps a reflection of the broader challenges facing smaller pharmacy operators.
Between Q1 2023 and Q4 2024, the share of visits to drugstore and pharmacy retailers attributed to CVS increased from 41.9% to 44.0%, while Walgreens’ share grew modestly from 49.2% to 50.4%. Meanwhile, the share of visits to smaller chains declined from 8.9% to 5.5%. This indicates that CVS’s growing visit share has not come at the expense of Walgreens – underscoring both chains’ resilience and growth potential in the face of sector-wide headwinds.
CVS closed hundreds of stores between 2022 and 2024 as it sought to refine its retail strategy – and now, the drugstore seems to be ready for its next move. The chain announced the rollout of about a dozen small-format stores, set to open throughout 2025. These stores will stock more of the essentials – cold medicine, first-aid care – and offer pharmacy services, while eschewing some of the traditional drugstore offerings like greeting cards and groceries.
And exploring CBSA-level visitation patterns at CVS suggests that this move may indeed be giving consumers what they want – especially in certain areas of the country. In 2024, short visits to CVS (i.e. those lasting less than ten minutes) increased YoY in many CBSAs nationwide, but some regions, like the Northeast, experienced stronger short visit growth than others. As CVS plans out its small-format expansion, focusing on regions with strong interest in short visits – where consumers may be particularly interested in an efficient shopping experience at a scaled-down location – could help it capture even more market share while improving customer convenience.
CVS and Walgreens have faced their fair share of challenges in recent years, but both are adapting to stay competitive. New leadership and store formats may help them better serve customers and navigate the shifting retail pharmacy market.
Will the segment continue to adapt to a changing retail environment? Visit Placer.ai to find out.
Recently, Target announced plans to add around 2,000 items to its baby and toddler assortment, with the goal of "supporting families throughout the parenting journey with products that bring joy and convenience to their everyday lives.”
The data suggests that Target shoppers are likely to react positively to this expanded baby assortment: Layering Placer.ai's trade area data with Spatial.ai's psychographic segmentation shows that Target's trade area is over-indexed for a range of family-oriented consumer segments, and affluent families in particular account for a significant share of Target's captured market. An expanded baby assortment is therefore likely to appeal to much of Target’s visitor base.
Malls have long acted as a gleaming symbol of American retail. Following the opening of the first indoor mall in 1956, and as the American middle class increasingly moved from the city to the suburbs, malls continued to open at a rapid rate. By 1960, some 4,500 shopping centers had opened nationwide, filling the growing demand for “third places” – spaces that allowed the newly suburban populations to gather, socialize, and create community. And while that role evolved over the years, it’s safe to say that malls have played a major part in shaping the American shopping culture.
But malls’ rapid expansion led to an oversaturated market – some estimates suggest that there are approximately 24 square feet of retail space per U.S. citizen, as compared to 4.6 for the U.K. and 2.8 for China. Many began to predict the demise and downfall of malls, and that narrative intensified as online shopping grew in popularity. The rise of big-box stores, a focus on “services, not things,” and COVID-19 only accelerated these trends.
A lot of the doom and gloom predictions tend to de-emphasize the mall's role as a modern incarnation of a bustling downtown shopping area.
But a lot of these doom and gloom predictions focus on malls only as a place to shop, and tend to de-emphasize their other role as the third place – a modern incarnation of a bustling downtown shopping area, replete with shops, services, and places to meet. And after two years of isolation and a new, pandemic-induced wave of suburban relocation, malls’ potential to bring people together is more prized than ever.
So although malls were hit hard during COVID-19, many of them are finding ways to reinvent themselves and stay relevant. Today, more than halfway through 2022, the challenges that malls face continue to evolve and change – but malls are evolving too. This white paper covers a few specific ways that some malls have found to thrive in the new normal. Some shopping centers are turning to entertainment to draw crowds into their doors. Others are focusing on offering a full visitor experience that extends beyond simply grabbing a new shirt or a burger at the food court. Still, more are embracing omnichannel options, offering an integrated on and offline experience to their shoppers. In the face of significant retail challenges, top-tier malls are turning to innovative solutions to stay ahead of the game.
The pandemic posed significant challenges to malls. Although foot traffic to the category rose back up in the summer of 2021, the Delta and subsequent Omicron waves brought visits down once more. And as visit gaps post-Omicron began to narrow, inflation and gas prices put the brakes on any return to normalcy. April and May 2022 saw visits beginning to trend up, though the unrelenting rise of inflation, the highest it’s been in the past 40 years, has slowed that recovery slightly.
Foot traffic data shows that malls are continuing to attract visitors, despite the challenges that seem to crop up weekly.
Still, foot traffic data shows that malls are continuing to attract visitors, despite the challenges that seem to crop up weekly. And while they may no longer play the central role they once did in Americans’ shopping routines, malls still serve as indoor community hubs where friends and family can come together for diverse food, shops, and entertainment options. This could explain why top-tier malls keep on coming back despite the seemingly constant obstacles.
Comparing monthly visits from January 2022 through July 2022 to the same period in 2019 highlights the significant difficulties facing the sector. Indoor malls, open-air lifestyle centers, and outlet malls alike saw marked lags in foot traffic as compared to three years ago.
Monthly year-over-three-year (Yo3Y) foot traffic comparisons also highlight mall resilience.
The monthly year-over-three-year (Yo3Y) foot traffic comparisons also highlight mall resilience. Following an Omicron-plagued January, the visit gaps narrowed in February 2022 to less than 5% for all the segments. And although the increase in gas prices and inflation brought visits down in March, malls quickly bounced back in April 2022, with indoor malls seeing only 1.8% fewer visits than in 2019 and open-air shopping centers down only 4.8% Yo3Y. Foot traffic fell again in May and June as consumers tightened their budgets in the face of rising prices, but consumers appear to have quickly made peace with the new economic reality. By July 2022, visits to indoor malls and open-air lifestyle centers were only 3.5% and 2.7% lower than they had been in July 2019.
COVID didn’t just impact visit numbers – since 2020, mall visits have also gotten shorter, likely a result of pandemic restrictions and a general desire not to congregate any longer than necessary. And although 2021 and 2022 saw a slight uptick in time spent at malls and shopping centers – from 60 minutes in 2020 to 62 minutes in 2021 and 2022 – the median dwell time is still significantly lower than the 70 minutes median dwell time of pre-COVID 2018 and 2019.
Shorter visits are not necessarily a bad thing – intent-driven shoppers may simply be doing more research ahead of time and less in-mall browsing.
Shorter visits are not necessarily a bad thing in and of themselves – consumers today are highly informed, so many intent-driven shoppers may simply be doing more research ahead of time and less in-mall browsing. But shorter (and fewer) visits do mean that malls must focus on giving shoppers a reason to visit. We explore some successful strategies below.
Malls have long integrated entertainment into their overall experience in the form of arcades, movie theaters, and even coin-operated animal rides. Some malls, however, are taking their entertainment offerings to the next level.
In August 2021, CBL Properties, a Tennessee-based property developer, announced the opening of the Hollywood Casino by Penn National Gaming in the York Galleria Mall in York, Pennsylvania. The 80,000 square foot casino, which boasts 500 slots and 24 live-action table games, opened in the mall’s lower level. The space was occupied by a now-closed Sears department store, and the entertainment venue now functions as a new anchor to draw customers in.
The casino’s opening has had a dramatic impact on the mall’s foot traffic. In a year-over-three-year (Yo3Y) comparison, July 2021 saw 2.4% fewer visitors than July 2018. But when the casino opened in August 2021, visits to the location jumped to 31.4% Yo3Y. This increase is all the more impressive considering that the casino opened on August 19th, with only 12 days left in the month.
The mall, which had seen negative Yo3Y visit numbers until the casino’s opening, has sustained the positive visit trend through July 2022 – a testament to the appeal of in-mall entertainment.
Another mall betting on indoor entertainment is the Pierre Bossier Mall in Bossier City, Louisiana. In April 2022, Surge Entertainment opened a child-friendly space, which includes zip-lining, bowling, laser tag and arcade games. The Surge Entertainment chain is co-owned by Drew Brees, the former New Orleans Saints quarterback, and has 15 locations around the country. The Pierre Bossier Mall branch is filling the space vacated by Virginia College, which closed its doors in 2018.
Since Surge Entertainment opened its Bossier City location, the mall has seen a dramatic increase in average dwell time.
Since Surge Entertainment opened its Bossier City location, the mall has seen a dramatic increase in average dwell time. Between July 2021 and March 2022, median dwell time hovered between 51 and 58 minutes. But following the center’s opening, median dwell time jumped to 78 minutes. Since then, the median dwell time has remained consistently elevated: In the four months since the Surge Entertainment opening, median dwell times did not drop below 75 minutes.
Brick-and-mortar retailers once viewed online shopping as a threat – but now, mall owners and operators are increasingly turning to digital channels to complement existing approaches. COVID-19 and the surge of online shopping further fueled malls’ digital progress. Over the past two years, large malls and suburban shopping centers across the country have been rolling out various online and social shopping options and adopting omnichannel strategies.
In September 2020, Centennial, a real estate investment firm with many malls and mixed-use entertainment centers in its portfolio, launched a chain-wide omnichannel platform called Shop Now!. The app allows consumers to shop across all Centennial malls the way someone would shop on Amazon.
The first phase of the program, which launched in October 2020, allowed users to browse an AI-powered search engine connected to the inventory of all of the stores operating in their mall of interest. In February 2022, Centennial debuted phase two of the program at its Santa Ana, CA based MainPlace Mall. It allows customers to consolidate orders from several stores into a single cart, get the order fulfilled by personal shoppers, and have the orders ready for same-day delivery or on-site pickup.
The e-commerce app could have detracted shoppers from physically going to the mall – but instead, the program increased both monthly and loyal visitors.
The app allows consumers to browse and shop from the comfort of their phones. It could have detracted shoppers from physically going to the mall – but instead, the program has increased both monthly and loyal visitors. In the months following the launch of the second phase, MainPlace Mall saw its loyal visits increase by 5% (from 46.2% in February ‘22 to 51.3% in June ‘22), while overall monthly visits in April ‘22 increased by 5.5% when compared to 2019. The digital investment also helped the mall make sales that could have been lost to other e-commerce platforms. The mall’s brick-and-mortar success following the addition of a digital channel highlights how malls can rise to the top by embracing an omnichannel strategy.
Continuing its innovative streak, the MainPlace Mall recently added an experiential component with the opening the American Ninja Warrior Adventure Park in July 2022 in the place of four former retail stores. During its first month of operation, the park drove the mall’s share of loyal visits up by 13.4% compared to the previous month while boosting Yo3Y monthly visits by 18.0%.
The difference in impact between the online platform launch and the opening of the American Ninja Warrior Adventure Park indicates that malls can enjoy both gradual gains over time as well as jumps in foot traffic and loyalty, depending on the strategy they adopt.
Omnichannel strategies can also revitalize food courts hit hard by the pandemic. Arundel Mills Mall, part of the Simon Property Group, began offering online orders in February 2022 via a platform called Snackpass, allowing users to use the app at various eateries around the mall. Snackpass, launched in 2017 as a food ordering app on the Yale campus, facilitates group ordering and includes various social features. Its current iteration allows customers to pre-order food, skip lines, collect rewards, and engage with friends. It also offers discounts on group orders, in an effort to promote social dining.
Since the beginning of the Snackpass partnership, the shopping center itself is seeing more visitors – many of whom are coming from farther away.
Since the beginning of the Snackpass partnership, the shopping center itself is seeing more visitors – many of whom are coming from farther away. In the five months following the app’s launch, Arundel Mills saw an overall increase of 15 square miles to its True Trade Area (TTA), and an increase of 29.5% in visits per sq. ft. – The consistent increase in TTA and visits per sq. ft. are a testament to the power of innovative dining partnerships to draw traffic to top-tier malls.
With many retailers reducing their on-mall presence, empty brick-and-mortar stores have attracted plenty of negative attention. But now, malls are increasingly repurposing vacated spaces in new, innovative ways that resonate with local communities and can fill their evolving needs.
At the Ocean County Mall in Toms River, NJ, Simon Property Group repurposed the huge space left by a former Sears store and turned it into a lifestyle center, with stores opening throughout 2020. The space is now being used by a number of highly popular chains such as LA Fitness, Ulta Beauty, HomeSense, and P.F. Chang’s and also includes a children's play area.
This pivot seems to be working. Median dwell time to the mall has increased from 53 minutes to 56 minutes, a significant change when considering that a majority of malls have recently seen their dwell times drop.
The center has also seen the median age for its trade area decrease from 40.5 years old in the first half of 2021 to 37.2 in the first half of 2022, a dramatic shift in visitor demographics. Yo3Y visits are strong as well – July 2022 were up by 17.1%.
In a similar tale of a closed Sears turning into a lifestyle center, the Northshore Mall in Peabody, MA turned the space vacated by the department store into a mixed-use center. The most significant anchor is now the high-end Life Time Fitness Center that offers cardio, weights, and functional training rooms, and includes yoga, pilates, and cycling studios, indoor and outdoor pools, basketball and pickleball courts, saunas, and a bistro.
As soon as the health club opened its doors in July 2021, visits to the mall increased – significantly outpacing the levels seen when Sears was still open.
As soon as the health club opened its doors in July 2021, visits to the mall increased – significantly outpacing the levels seen when Sears was still open. Both Yo3Y and year-over-four-year (Yo4Y) foot traffic numbers were impressive, with July 2022 seeing 17.2% more visitors than three years prior.
As visits to malls become more focussed, selecting the right tenant has never been more important – and that may mean looking at unconventional occupants to draw in customers.
In one example of tapping into local needs, the Westfield Oakridge shopping center in San Jose, CA, opened a specialty grocery store on its premises. 99 Ranch Market, one of the largest Asian supermarket chains in the U.S., began operating its first mall location in March 2022. The location includes classic grocery store items such as produce, meat, and seafood sections, and also boasts a dining hall, tea bar, and bakery.
Its opening day saw lines snaking out the door, as excited locals queued to sample the store’s delicacies. And the crowd-drawing hype seems to be more than a flash in the pan – the months following the opening were the mall’s strongest in the past year and a half. Yo3Y visits were up by 10.1% in July 2022 , with some shoppers reporting that the addition of the grocery store had turned Westfield Oakridge into their all-in-one stop shop.
Although the area was not lacking in grocery options, retail foot traffic data indicates that the new 99 Ranch Market at Westfield Oakridge Mall still filled a void.
Although the area was not lacking in grocery options, retail foot traffic data indicates that the new 99 Ranch Market at Westfield Oakridge Mall still filled a void – the new grocery store’s trade area has only minimal overlaps with the other trade areas of the nearby 99 Ranch Markets locations. This means that most of the new 99 Ranch Market’s customers were not being well-served by the existing locations of the chain.
Westfield Oakridge is not the only San Jose mall turning to food to attract the crowds. On June 16th 2022, following much hype and a pandemic-related delay, Eataly, the all-in-one Italian market, restaurant, and cooking school opened its first Northern California location at the Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara, CA.
Prior to the launch, the Westfield Valley Fair mall was already one of the more successful malls in the country – but the opening of Eataly seems to be driving even more foot traffic. Yo3Y visits to malls during Eataly’s opening week exceeded 20% for the first time in months and have since remained consistently elevated, with visits for the week of July 25th up 27.7% relative to the equivalent week in 2019.
In March 2022, regional department store Von Maur opened its doors at The Village of Rochester Hills, an open-air lifestyle center in Michigan. The retailer, which has 36 locations throughout the Midwest, took over the space left vacant by Carson’s, another Midwest-based department store.
What may be the first new department store in the Detroit metropolitan area in over a decade is driving visits to the shopping center.
What may be the first new department store in the Detroit metropolitan area in over a decade is driving visits to the shopping center. Von Maur’s March 2022 opening pushed Yo3Y visits up by 16.9% compared to the mere 4.3% Yo3Y increase the month before.
Part of the secret to Von Maur’s success lies in the psychographic characteristics of residents within the mall’s trade area. Using Spatial.ai’s GeoWeb data, a tool which tracks online engagement with various trends and topics by neighborhood, we found that the TTA surrounding The Village had an index of 131 for department store shoppers. In other words, people in the mall’s trade area exhibited heightened interest in department stores – they engaged with department-store-related content at a rate that was 1.3 times higher than the national average – which helps explain why Von Maur is thriving in this specific location. And in another testament to the strength of immersive retail experiences, Von Maur, which focuses on curating a unique shopper journey and features a pianist at all of its locations, has been ranked the top department store in America.
The addition of Von Maur is not the only change that The Village is implementing – the mall has continued adding new stores and will be opening more throughout the year. These, too, will likely boost foot traffic to the lifestyle center.
The mall’s ability to select tenants that cater to, and reflect the needs and behaviors of its consumers is likely to continue driving success. By drilling down into the nitty-gritty details of who comes to shop, where they come from, and what shops they enjoy frequenting, mall management can tailor the shopping center to meet the needs of its base.
The “death of the American mall” has been predicted for years. The reality, however, is much more nuanced than that – like many other sectors, malls are undergoing a shift to help them better serve evolving customer needs and survive and thrive in an ever-shifting retail landscape.
The malls featured in this white paper have found ways to consistently attract visitors despite the various obstacles faced by the category over the past two years. By understanding that the American mall must evolve along with the consumers, mall owners can successfully revitalize their retail spaces.
This report leverages location intelligence data to analyze the auto dealership market in the United States. By looking at visit trends to branded showrooms, used car lots, and mixed inventory dealerships – and analyzing the types of visitors that visit each category – this white paper sheds light on the state of car dealership space in 2023.
Prior to the pandemic and throughout most of 2020, visits to both car brand and used-only dealerships followed relatively similar trends. But the two categories began to diverge in early 2021.
Visits to car brand dealerships briefly returned to pre-pandemic levels in mid-2021, but traffic fell consistently in the second half of the year as supply-chain issues drove consistent price increases. So despite the brief mid-year bump, 2021 ended with overall new car sales – as well as overall foot traffic to car brand dealerships – below 2019 levels. Visits continued falling in 2022 as low inventory and high prices hampered growth.
Meanwhile, although the price for used cars rose even more (the average price for a new and used car was up 12.1% and 27.1% YoY, respectively, in September 2021), used cars still remained, on average, more affordable than new ones. So with rising demand for alternatives to public transportation – and with new cars now beyond the reach of many consumers – the used car market took off and visits to used car dealerships skyrocketed for much of 2021 and into 2022. But in the second half of last year, as gas prices remained elevated – tacking an additional cost onto operating a vehicle – visits to used car dealerships began falling dramatically.
Now, the price of both used and new cars has finally begun falling slightly. Foot traffic data indicates that the price drops appear to be impacting the two markets differently. So far this year, sales and visits to dealerships of pre-owned vehicles have slowed, while new car sales grew – perhaps due to the more significant pent-up demand in the new car market. The ongoing inflation, which has had a stronger impact on lower-income households, may also be somewhat inhibiting used-car dealership visit growth. At the same time, foot traffic to used car dealerships did remain close to or slightly above 2019 levels for most of 2023, while visits to branded dealerships were significantly lower year-over-four-years.
The situation remains dynamic – with some reports of prices creeping back up – so the auto dealership landscape may well continue to shift going into 2024.
With car prices soaring, the demand for pre-owned vehicles has grown substantially. Analyzing the trade area composition of leading dealerships that sell used cars reveals the wide spectrum of consumers in this market.
Dealerships carrying a mixed inventory of both new and used vehicles seem to attract relatively high-income consumers. Using the STI: Popstats 2022 data set to analyze the trade areas of Penske Automotive, AutoNation, and Lithia Auto Stores – which all sell used and new cars – reveals that the HHI in the three dealerships’ trade areas is higher than the nationwide median. Differences did emerge within the trade areas of the mixed inventory car dealerships, but the range was relatively narrow – between $77.5K to $84.5K trade area median HHI.
Meanwhile, the dealerships selling exclusively used cars – DriveTime, Carvana, and CarMax – exhibited a much wider range of trade area median HHIs. CarMax, the largest used-only car dealership in the United States, had a yearly median HHI of $75.9K in its trade area – just slightly below the median HHI for mixed inventory dealerships Lithia Auto Stores and AutoNation and above the nationwide median of $69.5K. Carvana, a used car dealership that operates according to a Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) model, served an audience with a median HHI of $69.1K – more or less in-line with the nationwide median. And DriveTime’s trade areas have a median HHI of $57.6K – significantly below the nationwide median.
The variance in HHI among the audiences of the different used-only car dealerships may reflect the wide variety of offerings within the used-car market – from virtually new luxury vehicles to basic sedans with 150k+ miles on the odometer.
Visits to car brands nationwide between January and September 2023 dipped 0.9% YoY, although several outliers reveal the potential for success in the space even during times of economic headwinds.
Visits to Tesla’s dealerships have skyrocketed recently, perhaps thanks to the company’s frequent price cuts over the past year – between September 2022 and 2023, the average price for a new Tesla fell by 24.7%. And with the company’s network of Superchargers gearing up to serve non-Tesla Electric Vehicles (EVs), Tesla is finding room for growth beyond its already successful core EV manufacturing business and positioning itself for a strong 2024.
Japan-based Mazda used the pandemic as an opportunity to strengthen its standing among U.S. consumers, and the company is now reaping the fruits of its labor as visits rise YoY. Porsche, the winner of U.S New & World Report Best Luxury Car Brand for 2023, also outperformed the wider car dealership sector. Kia – owned in part by Hyundai – and Hyundai both saw their foot traffic increase YoY as well, thanks in part to the popularity of their SUV models.
Analyzing dealerships on a national level can help car manufacturers make macro-level decisions on marketing, product design, and brick-and-mortar fleet configurations. But diving deeper into the unique characteristics of each dealership’s trade area on a state level reveals differences that can serve brands looking to optimize their offerings for their local audience.
For example, analyzing the share of households with children in the trade areas of four car brand dealership chains in four different states reveals significant variation across the regional markets.
Nationwide, Tesla served a larger share of households with children than Kia, Ford, or Land Rover. But focusing on California shows that in the Golden State, Kia’s trade area population included the largest share of this segment than the other three brands, while Land Rover led this segment in Illinois. Meanwhile, Ford served the smallest share of households with children on a nationwide basis – but although the trend held in Illinois and Pennsylvania, California Ford dealerships served more households with children than either Tesla or Land Rover.
Leveraging location intelligence to analyze car dealerships adds a layer of consumer insights to industry provided sales numbers. Visit patterns and audience demographics reveal how foot traffic to used-car lots, mixed inventory dealerships, and manufacturers’ showrooms change over time and who visits these businesses on a national or regional level. These insights allow auto industry stakeholders to assess current demand, predict future trends, and keep a finger on the pulse of car-purchasing habits in the United States.
