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It’s mid-January, and you promised yourself this would be the year you finally join a gym and get in shape.
But let’s be honest – choosing a gym is about more than fitness goals alone. You’ll still need to judge the equipment, locker rooms, and showers for yourself (we’re not here to do your dirty work) but there are other, less obvious factors that can determine which gym feels like the right fit – and that’s where we come in.
Trying to dodge the morning rush? Hoping to make new friends? Curious where other singles work out? Letting AI-powered location analytics do some of the heavy lifting, we analyzed major fitness chains to uncover the patterns that could help you find your ideal gym in 2026.
Few things derail motivation faster than showing up ready to work out – only to find every treadmill and weight machine taken. To understand which gyms are most likely to offer breathing room during the busiest parts of the day, we analyzed hourly visit patterns across the nation’s largest fitness chains.
The analysis shows clear differences in how morning traffic is distributed. For early risers, LA Fitness recorded the lowest share of daily visits between 5:00 AM and 8:00 AM in 2025, at just 8.9%. 24 Hour Fitness and EōS Fitness also kept morning traffic below the 10% mark, suggesting these chains may be better options for members looking to avoid crowded early workouts.
If after-work workouts are more your style – and minimizing crowds is the priority – the data points to a few clear standouts.
Among the analyzed gyms, Club Pilates recorded the smallest share of visits between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM at 16.5%, followed by Orangetheory (17.3%) and Burn Boot Camp (18.7%). That lighter early-evening traffic likely reflects the structured nature of class-based formats, which can help limit overcrowding even during peak hours.
Looking specifically at traditional gyms, EōS Fitness, Life Time, and Vasa Fitness saw the lowest share of early-evening visits – making them potential options for those hoping to squeeze in a workout while avoiding the after-work rush.
If getting in shape and finding love are both on the agenda this year, there may be a way to double up. Using AI-powered captured market data, we analyzed major gym chains to understand where members are most likely to be single – which may mean a higher chance of meeting someone special.
The analysis shows that Genesis Health Clubs had the highest combined share of one-person households and non-family households – i.e. people living alone or with roommates – in its captured market, at 36.6%. Crunch Fitness followed closely at 35.8%, with Planet Fitness just behind at 35.2%. These household segmentation patterns suggest that these gyms may offer more opportunities to meet other singles while getting in a workout.
If you’re looking for love, or simply to make new friends, age demographics may be something to consider when choosing a gym.
Our analysis of major fitness chains shows that the potential markets of Fitness Connection, Vasa Fitness, and In-Shape Family Fitness – i.e. the areas from which each chain draws its visitors – skewed younger in 2025, with large shares of visitors under 30.
By contrast, gyms such as The Edge Fitness Club, Retro Fitness, and Life Time tended to attract older audiences, with large shares of visitors 45 and older. For members looking to work out alongside peers closer to their own age, these demographic patterns could help narrow the field.
Age is just a number, right? So if you’re looking to make a real connection at the gym this year, you might look for some common areas of interest with other members. Our analysis highlights which gyms are most likely to attract visitors with your shared passions.
For dog lovers hoping to meet a fellow fitness enthusiast who’s just as excited about the dog park as leg day, Burn Boot Camp stands out. The chain over-indexed most strongly for the “Dog Lovers” segment, based on Spatial.ai: Proximity and AI-powered captured market data.
Prefer bonding over a good book? Genesis Health Clubs led the pack for the “Bookish” segment, suggesting a higher likelihood of members who enjoy reading as much as a solid workout. Coffee aficionados may find their people at 24 Hour Fitness, which showed the strongest over-indexing for the “Coffee Connoisseur” segment.
For those with travel on the brain, Workout Anytime over-indexed for the “Wanderlust” segment – pointing to a member base more likely to dream about their next destination. And if your ideal post-workout plan includes a movie or live show, 24 Hour Fitness and Gold’s Gym emerged as standouts, over-indexing for the “Film Lovers” and “Live & Local Music” segments, respectively.
Ultimately, choosing the right gym goes beyond equipment, pricing, or proximity. Visit patterns, demographics, and shared interests all shape the experience – influencing when you’ll work out, who you’ll see, and how the gym fits into your broader lifestyle. While no dataset can guarantee a perfect match, these patterns offer a data-backed starting point for finding a gym that aligns with how you want to train, socialize, and show up in 2026.
Want more data-driven insights for the real world? Visit Placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
*This article excludes data from Washington State due to local regulations
Brick-and-mortar retail ended 2025 on a high note, with offline retailers posting a 2.4% increase in traffic in Q4 2025 relative to Q4 2024. This growth underscores the sector’s continued relevance even amid ongoing e-commerce growth and reinforces that retail growth is not a zero-sum dynamic, but one in which physical and digital channels increasingly coexist and complement one another.
The traffic gains during the holiday season also highlights the particular appeal of physical retail during the holiday season, when demand for in-person shopping experiences is particularly high. And as retailers refine store formats, right-size footprints, and better integrate physical locations into omnichannel strategies, brick-and-mortar retail is well positioned to remain a critical growth and engagement channel heading into 2026.
Foot traffic to e-commerce distribution centers remained consistently positive YoY throughout 2025, underscoring the strength of the logistics segment and signaling durable demand for logistics space rather than short-term fluctuations. This pattern aligns with the broader trajectory of e-commerce in the U.S., where online retail sales are projected to continue expanding, and reflects a broader structural shift in how goods move through the economy, with fulfillment infrastructure playing an increasingly central role.
This consistency is driven by long-term forces shaping retail and supply chains, including omnichannel fulfillment, faster delivery expectations, and inventory decentralization. As retailers rely more heavily on regional distribution nodes to support ship-from-store, curbside pickup, and next-day delivery, logistics facilities have become essential infrastructure rather than optional back-end operations. Even as growth moderated slightly later in the year, the persistence of positive YoY traffic points to sustained operational intensity and long-term relevance.
Year-over-year (YoY) foot traffic to U.S. manufacturing facilities points to volatility rather than sustained growth, reflecting a sector that is actively managing uncertainty. Visits declined during much of the year, suggesting restrained hiring as manufacturers appear to be operating lean – adjusting labor and on-site activity quickly in response to demand changes. Productivity gains and automation are likely also playing a role, allowing facilities to maintain output with less consistent physical presence. As a result, the foot traffic volatility may be reflecting operational flexibility rather than simple expansion or contraction.
Against this backdrop, December stands out with a clear uptick in manufacturing visits, signaling increased end-of-year activity. This rise likely reflects a mix of year-end production runs, inventory adjustments, maintenance work, and preparation for early-year demand. The December traffic increase reinforces that U.S. manufacturing – still one of the largest and most economically significant sectors globally – is adapting, not retreating, maintaining operational relevance even as it recalibrates for efficiency, automation, and selective growth.
For more data-driven retail & CRE insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Pacsun has seen its fair share of challenges in its more than forty years of business. Now, the brand is entering a new phase of growth, with a major brick-and-mortar expansion alongside concrete steps to engage Gen Z consumers. We dove into the data for several Pacsun locations outperforming their host malls to understand what a growing footprint could mean for shopping centers and how the brand is connecting with young consumers online and off.
Pacsun has faced its share of challenges over the years. More recently, however, the legacy brand and mall staple appears to be in the midst of a renaissance – with plans to further expand its domestic brick-and-mortar footprint in 2026.
Foot traffic data for several Pacsun locations that experienced notable foot traffic growth in 2025 suggests that the brand’s stores have the potential to help drive traffic to the shopping centers that host them. At The Promenade Shops at Centerra in Colorado, visits to Pacsun rose 35.7% YoY in 2025, significantly outpacing the -5.5% visit gap of the mall as a whole.
Psychographic segmentation suggests that beyond driving visits, these locations also help attract key young demographics to the mall.
At Winter Garden Village, for example, the Gen Z-aligned "Young Professionals" segment accounted for 19.4% of the Pacsun store’s captured market, compared to the mall’s 16.2% share of the segment.
These locations may be an example of how Pacsun’s physical retail presence works together with its social-sales strategy to engage with a younger generation; driving traffic, in part, by serving as spaces to experience products seen on trusted social channels or at creator-led events.
And Pacsun appears firmly committed to its younger audience as part of its wider strategy. Although the brand looks to move upmarket, the latest example of which being the launch of a premium eyewear collection, by maintaining what it views as an accessible price point, Pacsun remains focused on consumers yet to reach their peak earning years.
Pacsun’s ability to drive traffic from this key demographic makes it an attractive potential tenant for malls looking to build long-term loyalty among younger audiences with earning potential.
The Pacsun model demonstrates that physical retail remains a critical touchpoint for brands investing in digital engagement and younger audiences. With plans to open dozens of new locations over the next few years, Pacsun emerges as a compelling tenant for shopping centers seeking cultural relevance and the next generation of consumers.
For more retail insights, visit Placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
The grocery category saw notable shifts in consumer behavior in 2025 as inflation and tariff uncertainty continued to weigh on household budgets. Analyzing consumer traffic trends for several grocery formats – including wholesale clubs, which serve as primary grocery destinations for many families – reveals how evolving consumer preferences shaped grocery performance in 2025 and highlights key lessons for grocers and CPG companies heading into 2026.
Like many retail categories in 2025, grocery was shaped by continued economic uncertainty and value-seeking behavior. But AI-powered location analytics shows that consumers also prioritized quality when forming a value perception in the grocery space.
The graph below shows that grocery visits increased across formats, likely reflecting consumers’ shift toward more meals at home as a way to save money in a persistently inflationary environment.
Fresh format grocers posted the strongest year-over-year (YoY) visit growth, perhaps due to their selection of prepared foods and salad bars as an alternative to eating out, as well as their emphasis on health and wellness – an emerging priority among grocery shoppers. Meanwhile, value grocers and wholesale clubs, known for their ability to deliver savings, consistently outperformed traditional grocers in YoY visit growth.
These patterns indicate that consumers are increasingly weighing up quality and price in the grocery aisle, a trend that is driving the expansion of private-label offerings.
As consumers substituted restaurant meals with more cost-conscious options, grocery stores also emerged as increasingly important destinations for quick, convenient lunches.
Analyzing relative visit share between the grocery category and quick-service restaurants (QSRs) shows that between 2024 and 2025, grocery stores claimed an increasingly large share of short midday visits – i.e. visits lasting less than ten minutes between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM.
And while some of QSR’s relative decline in short lunchtime visits could be due to discontent with rising fast-food prices among highly value-conscious consumers, it also suggests that a growing share of consumers see grocery stores – where they can pick up ready-to-eat items – as convenient options during the lunch rush. Traditional grocers saw the largest increase in short midday visits (from 15.9% to 16.6%) while value and fresh format grocers saw more modest increases. Notably, the share of short midday visits to wholesale clubs was unchanged between 2024 and 2025 (2.1%), perhaps since these chains don’t offer the same pre-prepared and small-package options like other grocery formats.
These metrics underscore the strong demand for on-the-go meal options and single-serving, shelf-stable products that both grocery stores and CPG companies can provide.
Beyond the lunchtime rush, celebration-driven demand continued to play a central role in grocery traffic this year. Like in past years, Turkey Wednesday – the day before Thanksgiving – was by far the busiest grocery shopping day of the year, with category visits up 80.5% compared to the 2025 daily average. Several of the year’s other busiest grocery days similarly fell immediately ahead of major holidays, including New Year’s Eve, Easter, Mother’s Day, and the 4th of July, as consumers stocked up ahead of gatherings with family and friends.
Leading up to Christmas, grocery shopping appeared to be spread across several high-traffic days rather than concentrated on a single peak; Christmas Eve and December 23rd had nearly identical foot traffic boosts of 57.9% and 58.0%, respectively. And even December 22nd – three days before Christmas – stood out as one of the year’s busiest grocery shopping days, with visits running 28.9% above average for 2025.
Some consumers may have made multiple “re-stocking” grocery trips in the days leading up to Christmas – potentially driven by the presence of out-of-town guests requiring ongoing food replenishment – or visited multiple stores to secure specific ingredients for holiday meals.
Grocers could leverage this trend by stocking a wide range of holiday-specific ingredients and rotating promotions that encourage repeat visits ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The grocery landscape in 2025 was also shaped by distinct shopping preferences across demographic groups.
AI-powered captured market data combined with the STI: PopStats dataset shows that singles – defined as non-family and one-person households – heavily favored fresh-format grocers, while households with children were most likely to visit wholesale clubs and value grocers.
Grocers and CPGs can unlock growth by tailoring assortments and promotional strategies to their target audience – emphasizing bulk value and price-driven messaging for family shoppers, while leaning into curated selection, prepared foods, and convenience to engage singles.
Several consumer trends shaped the grocery space in 2025 – including holiday visit surges, the prioritization of value, and convenient on-the-go meals.
How will these trends shape the grocery space in 2026? Visit Placer.ai/anchor to find out.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
Even as return-to-office (RTO) mandates continue to accumulate, December operates on a different rhythm – shaped as much by holiday flexibility and inclement weather as by formal policy. We dove into the data to see how office attendance reflected these dynamics this year.
In December 2025, visits to office buildings nationwide were 33.1% below 2019 levels – 36.2% below when accounting for working days – the widest year-over-six-year (Yo6Y) gap seen in recent months on a per-working-day basis.
But the softness appears to reflect shifting work patterns rather than a stalled recovery. Despite slowing from recent months, December 2025 was still the busiest in-office December since COVID, suggesting that the slowdown was driven by seasonal rhythms rather than any substantive pullback in office attendance.
December has long followed a different in-office rhythm than the rest of the year – and despite return-to-office mandates, many companies likely relax on-site expectations during the holidays, allowing employees to work remotely while traveling or spending time with family. Much like the TGIF workweek, which sees a consistent drop-off in office activity on Fridays despite RTO pushes, the December dip may simply reflect the solidification of a new post-COVID seasonal norm.
Local factors also appear to have impacted December office attendance. Miami saw a visit gap of just 10.9% versus 2019, followed by Dallas at 18.8%. As warm-weather cities that also see the highest Friday office attendance among the analyzed markets, both may be less susceptible to holiday-adjacent work-from-home behavior.
New York City, by contrast, recorded a 19.6% visit gap, likely weighed down by harsher winter weather and an early, severe flu season. And Chicago trailed the pack with a 47.6% visit gap, pointing to a sharper seasonal pullback that may have been amplified by winter conditions, elevated flu activity, and workers opting to travel to warmer destinations during the holidays.
The year-over-year (YoY) analysis further reinforces that December’s softness is seasonal rather than a reflection of a true RTO slowdown. Even after adjusting for the number of working days, nationwide office visits rose 4.9% YoY, and every tracked market posted gains.
That said, growth remained uneven across major cities. San Francisco posted the strongest YoY gains, even as it continued to trail most other analyzed markets in overall office recovery – reflecting an ongoing vibe shift in a city once defined by post-pandemic pessimism. And with the city’s AI-driven leasing boom showing no signs of slowing, that momentum appears likely to carry into 2026.
Elsewhere, YoY gains were smaller than in San Francisco but still meaningful, pointing to steady progress across markets even as recovery paths vary by city.
The data suggests that December’s softening reflects predictable holiday-season flexibility rather than weakening momentum. And with several high-profile return-to-office mandates set to take effect in early 2026 – and other employers continuing to nudge attendance higher through quieter forms of “hybrid creep”– the broader office recovery appears poised to reassert itself in the new year.
For more data-driven office insights follow Placer.ai/anchor.
Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the US. The data is trusted by thousands of industry leaders who leverage Placer.ai for insights into foot traffic, demographic breakdowns, retail sale predictions, migration trends, site selection, and more.
Back in April 2025, I channeled my inner Peter King and made nine predictions about retail's biggest players in my article "All The Things I Think I Think About Retail Over The Last Quarter."
Now, with eight months of hindsight and fresh data in my rearview, it's time for a reckoning. It is time to examine what I got right, what I got wrong, and, most importantly, what I learned from the overall exercise.
Or, put simply, I guess you could say that what lies in front of you, dear reader, is my assessment of how well I think I thought.
Grade: F (Spectacularly Wrong)
What I predicted: "Buchanan did a wonderful job instilling an omnichannel foundation at Michaels... Buchanan is the right man for the job at Kohl's. But I do not envy Buchanan. Not. One. Bit."
What actually happened: Well, I was right that I should not have envied him. Ashley Buchanan was fired for cause after just over 100 days in May 2025 following an investigation that revealed he violated company policies by directing Kohl's to engage in vendor transactions involving undisclosed conflicts of interest. Specifically, he had a romantic relationship with a vendor (Incredibrew CEO Chandra Holt) that he failed to disclose while pushing through deals with what has been reported as "highly unusual terms favorable to the vendor."
The twist: This wasn't about performance. It was about ethics. Kohl's board found Buchanan guilty of serious misconduct, and he was forced to forfeit $15 million in stock awards and repay $2.5 million of his signing bonus. The company is now on its fourth CEO in four years, with Michael Bender (a retail veteran from Walmart and PepsiCo) taking the helm in late 2025.
The reality: Buchanan's tenure at Kohl's will go down as one of the shortest and most ignominious CEO stints in retail history. I predicted he'd have his work cut out for him, but I didn't predict he'd be fired before he could even start the real work it would take to turn Kohl’s around.
The Lesson: Sometimes the biggest risk isn't the turnaround. It's the person at the helm. And, fortunately for Kohl’s, the Street appears to be responding to Mr. Bender, as the stock price has appreciated by a factor of four since he took over for Buchanan in April.
Grade: A+ (Nailed It)
What I predicted: "Costco held to a position that many others, including Walmart, Target, and Tractor Supply Company, have not... for all intents and purposes, at least initially, Costco appears to be holding strong to its principles and doing just fine."
What actually happened: I was spot on. Costco's Q3 2025 results immediately following the decision by shareholders to vote down a measure to assess DEI risks showed 8% revenue growth, U.S. comparable sales up 7.9% (excluding gas deflation), and net income up 13.2% year-over-year.
Even more telling: While Target hemorrhaged traffic following its DEI rollback, Costco gained during the same period, and took many shoppers from Target I might add.
Flash forward to year-end performance: Costco's fiscal year-end results, for its fiscal year that ended on August 31, 2025, demonstrated sustained strength. Net sales for Q4 increased 8.0% to $84.4 billion, while full-year sales reached $269.9 billion, up 8.1%. Comparable sales for the full year grew 5.9% (7.6% adjusted for gas and foreign exchange), with e-commerce sales exceeding $19.6 billion for the year, up 15%. Membership fee income, Costco's profit engine, also reached $5.32 billion, up 10.4% over the previous year.
Most recent results (Q1 Fiscal 2026): The momentum continued into the new fiscal year. For the quarter ended November 23, 2025, Costco reported net sales of $66.0 billion, up 8.2% year-over-year, with EPS of $4.50 beating analyst expectations of $4.27. Comparable sales rose 6.4%, while digitally-enabled sales surged an impressive 20.5%. Digital traffic jumped 24% and app traffic exploded 48% year-over-year.
But what about the stock?: While Costco's business has been phenomenal, Costco’s stock price tells a more nuanced story. After spectacular gains of 49% in 2023 and 39.6% in 2024, shares hit an all-time high of $1,078 in February 2025. However, at the time this article was written, the stock has since pulled back approximately 20% from that peak, ending 2025 down roughly 6% year-to-date and about 12% over the trailing twelve months, significantly underperforming the S&P 500's 17% gain over the same period.
Zoom out: Over the past two years, Costco’s stock price is still far beyond where it was at the close of 2023, when it sat right around $700 per share. The stock currently trades around $850-860 per share at a forward P/E of approximately 46x, which analysts cite as the primary reason for the recent underperformance as opposed to any fundamental business weakness (Target, for comparison, trades at a P/E of 11-12x).
The Lesson: Principles and profits aren't mutually exclusive when backed by operational excellence. Costco proved that standing firm on values, combined with relentless execution, membership growth, digital transformation, and an unwavering focus on member value can strengthen your brand and drive superior business results. Short-term stock volatility driven by valuation concerns shouldn’t diminish the fundamental vindication of the strategy.
Grade: A (Nearly Perfect)
What I predicted: "Sprouts has done a masterful job rightsizing its store prototype... The one driving an 11.5% comp in Sprouts' most recent quarter? It still has a lot more room to grow."
What actually happened: Sprouts absolutely crushed it. In Q2 2025, Sprouts delivered a 17% net sales increase and 10.2% comparable sales growth, and followed that up in Q3 with another 5.9% comp on top of a big 2024 Q3 comp of 8.4% The company also plans to open 37 new stores in 2025 and saw e-commerce sales jump 21% in the most recent quarter.
Even more impressive: EBIT margins expanded from 6.7% to 8.1% in Q2 and also performed nicely in Q3 at 7.2%, demonstrating that Sprouts is achieving both top line and profitable growth. CEO Jack Sinclair's strategy of right-sizing stores, improving differentiation, and launching a loyalty program (rolled out in Q3) is firing on all cylinders.
The only minor caveat: Growth moderated slightly in Q3 (comp sales of 5.9%) and Q4 guidance calls for just 0-2% comp growth, suggesting some normalization. But with 464 stores across 24 states and record numbers at its back, Sprouts is still positioned for continued expansion.
The Lesson: When a retailer gets the fundamentals right, i.e. store format, location strategy, and customer experience, that’s when lightning gets caught in a bottle.
Grade: B+ (Appropriately Skeptical)
What I predicted: "One should take the results of tests like these (Macy’s First 50 store strategy) with a fine grain of salt... As the focus wears off, tests like these usually revert back to the mean. And, the mean... won't keep the Macy's Day parade balloons afloat."
What actually happened: Macy’s ended 2025 on a high note. Not necessarily a Celine Dion-like high note but a high note nonetheless. In its most recent quarter (Macy’s Q3), Macy’s Inc. posted its strongest performance in the last three years, with comps increasing 3.2% and also putting its two-year stack at a respectable 2.0%.
The First 50 stores, aka the Macy’s stores alluded to above that have received extra special attention from Macy’s, have consistently outperformed the rest of the Macy's chain throughout 2025, posting relative comparable sales gains while the overall chain has lagged behind. So much so that, by the end of Q3, Macy's had expanded the program to 125 stores (now called the "First 125").
But here's where my skepticism may still be justified: The overall Macy's namesake banner is still bleeding. Net sales for the namesake brand fell 2.3% in Q3, while comps for stores slated to remain open rose 2.3% and those at revamped stores (aka the “First 125”) rose 2.7%. Comparable sales for fiscal 2025 at Macy’s are now expected to be flat to up to 1%, compared to the previous flat to down 1.5% outlook from the previous quarter.
CEO Tony Spring, to his immense credit, is right that the investments are showing results. The stores with enhanced staffing, better merchandising, and improved visuals are indeed performing. However, I was also right that 50 (now 125) is a long way from 350, and the "mean" performance of the rest of the chain is still dragging the Macy’s namesake brand down. The First 50/125 strategy may indeed be working, at least for now, but anniversarying growth year-over-year is no easy feat.
The Lesson: The jury is still out on whether tactical improvements can overcome larger strategic challenges. Macy's First 50 could end up being the equivalent of putting premium gas in a car that needs a new engine. Right now, I am only willing to go so far as to say that the new paint job, however, is making a difference.
Grade: A- (Strong Directional Call)
What I predicted: "Bloomingdale's, unlike Macy's, could be onto something with its small format strategy... The majority of the country has no idea what a Bloomingdale's experience is like."
What actually happened: Bloomingdale's absolutely shined in 2025. Q4 comparable sales jumped 9% year-over-year on an owned-plus-licensed-plus-marketplace basis, making it the strongest performer in the Macy's Inc. portfolio. The smaller-format Bloomie's stores continued to show promising traffic patterns, with year-over-year visit growth outpacing the general department store industry by a wide margin.
CEO Tony Spring has resisted calls to spin off Bloomingdale's, citing synergies, but the performance gap between Bloomie's and Macy's continues to widen, validating my assessment that "Bloomie's is a different story," both as an overall concept and as a smaller store idea.
The Lesson: Scarcity creates value. When you only have 33 full-line stores, a smaller format can be a growth vehicle rather than a cannibalizer, so I expect to see more of the small format Bloomie’s stores in 2026 and 2027.
Grade: A+ (Depressingly Accurate)
What I predicted: "Target's former beachheads are now all under siege... Something is causing the temperature of Target's porridge to feel just not quite right... Its new $15 billion growth plan is potentially a step in the right direction. However, I worry that, when one looks under the covers of that plan, all he or she will find is the same owned brand gobbledygook."
What actually happened: Target imploded. According to CNBC, the retailer posted negative comp store sales declines in every quarter of 2025, with Q2 comp sales down 1.9% and then down another 2.7% in Q3. Brian Cornell announced he's stepping down as CEO in February 2026 after 11 years, to be replaced by COO Michael Fiddelke, an insider who helped develop the current struggling strategy.
The stock has been decimated: down 49% over five years (while Walmart is up 118% and Costco up 135%), and down 30% in the past year alone. Analysts now rate Cornell as one of the worst CEOs in America, with 28 of 38 analysts rating Target as Sell or Hold.
My concerns about the $15 billion growth plan were prescient. It's heavily dependent on the same owned-brand strategy that's been failing, and the recent DEI rollback in January 2025 resulted in a boycott that, as we discussed above, cost Target shoppers this year.
Activist investors are now calling for an independent board chair, and the succession to Fiddelke has been widely criticized as more "entrenched groupthink" from a company that's lost touch with consumers.
The Lesson: Don’t believe the hype. When you're the goldilocks story whose success rested upon competitors going bankrupt and being one of the few available one-stop-shop options during the pandemic, eventually borrowed time runs out.
Grade: A (Excellent Timing)
What I predicted: "Wayfair's CEO Niraj Shah is as shrewd as they come, and he may just be betting on stores right as a big tailwind is ready to hit his back."
What actually happened: Wayfair announced not one, not two, but FOUR new large-format stores since my article. Atlanta (early 2026), Yonkers (2027), Denver (late 2026), and Columbus (late 2026, testing a smaller 70,000 sq ft format). The inaugural Wilmette, Illinois store, also appears to be what I would call a success. According to Wayfair:
Even more validating: The home furnishings industry is due for a rebound (at some point), and Wayfair's physical retail push could be timed exactly as that rebound crests.
The Lesson: Sometimes the best time to invest is when everyone else is pulling back, which is why Niraj Shah's timing and execution, I predict, will one day be viewed as a stroke of genius in the annals of retail history.
Grade: C (Directionally Correct, But Still Needs Improvement)
What I predicted: "Given that Niccol (Starbucks’ CEO) has only been in his role since September, these results at least have the aroma of an early turnaround."
What actually happened: This one's complicated. Starbucks' turnaround under Brian Niccol has shown signs of life but it's been slower and messier than hoped. For most of fiscal 2025, same-store sales continued to decline (down 1% in Q2 and down 2% in Q3). However, Q4 2025 finally delivered positive global comparable sales growth for the first time in seven quarters.
The bright spots: North America comps improved to flat in Q4, and U.S. comp sales turned positive in September and stayed positive through October. Its "Green Apron Service" initiative, Starbucks says, is showing early promise, with pilot locations seeing transaction growth and service time improvements and its August rollout also being correlated to the recent improvement in results.
The challenges: The turnaround required significant corporate restructuring, store closures, labor strikes, and China being moved to a joint venture. Revenue was up modestly, but adjusted EPS fell significantly for most of the year.
My prediction about Niccol "righting the ship" was directionally correct. By late 2025, momentum has been building. But it's been a longer, harder journey than the "early aroma" suggested. While some critics have also labeled him among 2025's "worst CEOs" for the ongoing struggles, that moniker, in my opinion, is incredibly harsh and unfounded so early in his tenure, and especially when Buchanan and Cornell have about a 50 furlong lead as we round the turn on 2025.
The Lesson: Turnarounds in retail are hard, even with proven talent. Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" strategy may in fact be working. It may just take longer than investors had hoped.
Grade: A+ (Absolute Bullseye)
What I predicted: "For the past six years, Sam's Club has sat atop my list as the most innovative retailer in America not named Amazon... The combination of a digital-first shopping experience and a growing percentage of younger people shopping in its stores means that Sam's Club is positioned to create the most one-to-one personalized shopping experience out there."
What actually happened: Sam's Club absolutely dominated in 2025. Q4 comparable sales (excluding fuel) were up 6.8%, e-commerce sales grew 24%, and membership income achieved five consecutive quarters of double-digit growth (up 12.5% in Q4). The numbers I cited, specifically in my April article, 1 in 3 shoppers using Scan & Go, 63% growth in Gen Z membership over two years, and 14% growth in millennial membership, appear to be fueling the fire.
For example, Sam’s Club announced ambitious plans in April to double memberships and more than double sales and profit over the next 8-10 years. Its Member's Mark private label brand represents 50% of its merchandise sales growth over the last two years. Its digital penetration is at a record high, with e-commerce now accounting for an astounding 18% of sales and expected to reach 40% in the next few years, a Sam’s Club goal that 1) if true and 2) if accomplished, will leave many retailers eating Sam’s dust.
Oh, and one more thing, Sam's Club also surpassed Costco in the American Customer Satisfaction Index because of its technology innovations like Scan & Go and its AI powered exit archways. And its new Grapevine, Texas store will serve as a laboratory to push the boundaries of this tech even further.
Everything I said about Sam's Club being "the retailer more people should be talking about" was vindicated. They're crushing it across every metric. You name it. Sales, innovation, membership growth, younger demographics, retail media potential. Sam’s has simply been hitting it out of the park.
The Lesson: Innovation doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from a hell or high water commitment to R&D year-over-year, something for which many retailers don’t have the stomach.
| Prediction | Grade | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Kohl's / Buchanan | F | Fired for ethics violations in 100 days |
| Costco DEI Stance | A+ | Revenue up 8%, vindicated completely |
| Sprouts Growth | A | 17% sales growth, margin expansion |
| Macy's First 50 | B+ | Working but not enough to save chain |
| Bloomingdale's Small Format | A- | 9% comp growth, clear differentiation |
| Target Struggles | A+ | Stock down 49%, CEO stepping down |
| Wayfair Physical Retail | A | 4 new stores announced, Illinois success |
| Starbucks Turnaround | C | Turning positive but slower than hoped |
| Sam's Club Innovation | A+ | 6.8% comps, crushing all metrics |
Overall GPA: 3.22 / 4.0 (B+)
Looking across these nine predictions, several themes emerge:
1. Innovation Without Execution Is Worthless – Target had digital tools, owned brands, and a PR-loving CEO. But without operational excellence and strategic clarity, none of it mattered. Meanwhile, Sam's Club, Costco and Sprouts all executed relentlessly on clear strategies.
2. Values Can Be a Competitive Advantage – Costco proved that standing firm on DEI didn't hurt business. It helped. While competitors retreated, Costco gained traffic, membership loyalty, and shareholder confidence.
3. Physical Retail Isn't Dead. It's Just Evolving – Wayfair, Sam's Club, and even Bloomingdale's showed that physical stores still matter, and especially when they're reimagined around experience, convenience, and brand differentiation.
4. Turnarounds Take Time – Starbucks and Macy's both demonstrated that fixing broken operations is harder and slower than expected. Even great CEOs need patience and resources.
5. The Gap Between Winners and Losers Is Widening – There's less middle ground than ever. You're either innovating and winning, or you're falling behind.
So, what do I think of what I thought?
I think I’ll take it. In this topsy turvy year of retailing, I will take a B+. The Stanford-educated Phi Beta Kappa in me is admittedly kind of pissed about the grade, but given that my average was taken down by a tawdry love drama not seen since a Friday evening with the Lifetime channel, I can still rest easy going into 2026.
More importantly, these predictions remind me why I love this industry. Retail is theater. It's strategy. It's execution. It's about understanding people, both customers and, let’s not forget, leaders and corporate cultures, too. Sometimes you get surprised (for example, who knew coffee would impact two of my predictions this year!), but more often than not, the fundamentals win out.
The retailers that focused on customer experience, operational excellence, and genuine innovation, e.g. Costco, Sprouts, Sam's Club, Wayfair, are continuing to thrive. The ones that lost their way strategically or culturally (yes, I’m looking squarely at you, Target), along with the ones in transition, like Starbucks, are showing that turnarounds are possible but that the road will also be long and difficult.
As we head into 2026, I'm watching to see if these trends accelerate. Will Target's new CEO make meaningful changes, or will it be more of the same? Can Macy's First 125 strategy actually scale? Will Wayfair's physical store expansion continue to exceed expectations? And more pressing: Which retailers will inspire my predictions for 2026?
Stay tuned. Because I don’t just think I think we're in for another interesting year. I know I know we are.
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.
