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DICK's Sporting Goods outlined a number of reasons behind its decision to acquire Foot Locker this week, including: creating a global platform in the sporting goods retail category, strengthening partnerships with suppliers, and improving its omnichannel capabilities. However, the opportunity to tap into a larger target audience strikes us as the most interesting rationale behind the acquisition, so we thought we’d take a closer look using Placer.ai data.
Foot Locker has a strong presence in malls and urban centers, coupled with its deep connection to sneaker culture and a younger, more fashion-conscious demographic. On the other hand, DICK's has traditionally attracted a broader, family-oriented sporting goods appeal and suburban footprint. Our data reflects this, with the captured market data for the DICK’s Sporting Goods banners showing higher median household income ($87.4K) relative to the Foot Locker banners ($62.3K) as well as a higher percentage of visitors with a Bachelor’s Degree and a smaller household size.
While there are a number strategic benefits for DICK's Sporting Goods acquiring Foot Locker, the significant expansion and diversification of its customer reach is paramount. For major brand partners like Nike and adidas, this unified retail entity presents a compelling advantage: access to Foot Locker's younger, urban, and fashion-forward "sneakerhead" demographic alongside DICK's established suburban consumers through a single, more influential wholesale relationship, thereby maximizing their market penetration and simplifying brand messaging across a broader spectrum of the U.S. consumer landscape. This should also allow for stronger co-marketing opportunities between the footwear brands and retailers, which is crucial in an industry where major brands are increasingly focused on direct-to-consumer strategies.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Small-format stores are all the rage. Retailers from Macy’s to IKEA are experimenting with more compact locations to save on operating costs, expand into new markets, and offer customers a more convenient, curated shopping experience.
But just how effective is this approach? Is “going small” truly the key to brick-and-mortar retail success in 2025?
We dove into the data to find out.
One chain that has successfully embraced a small-format strategy is Sprouts Farmers Market, the upscale, fresh-format grocery brand that has been steadily expanding over the past few years. Since 2022, the chain has pivoted from its traditional 30,000-32,000-square-foot stores to a more compact model of around 23,000 square feet. And location analytics suggest that this shift has been instrumental in Sprouts’ ongoing success.
In Q1 2025, the average number of visits per Sprouts location nationwide rose 4.4% year over year (YoY). But the chains’ smaller-format stores – those under 24,000 square feet – saw an even more impressive 8.8% YoY jump.
And digging into demographic data reveals that these smaller stores are helping Sprouts connect with new, urban audiences while still appealing to its core suburban customer base. Like Sprouts’ larger stores, the smaller outlets attract a higher-than-average share of “Suburban Periphery” shoppers, though less than the chain overall. But these smaller stores also draw more customers from urban areas – including shoppers from “Principal Urban Centers” that tend to be under-represented in Sprouts’ trade areas. Meanwhile, small-format Sprouts’ also attract visitors from slightly less affluent areas (though still above the nationwide median) – showing how Sprouts is expanding its audience without losing its suburban, affluent core.
Kohl’s is another chain demonstrating the potential of scaled-down stores. In 2022, the retailer announced plans to open about 100 smaller-format stores – around 35,000 square feet – a marked reduction from Kohl’s typical 80,000-square-foot footprint. And the success of Kohl’s 37,000 square-foot “concept” store in Tacoma, WA – opened in November 2022 as a testing ground for this format – showcases the promise of this approach.
The store offers a curated selection of active lifestyle products geared towards local preferences – as well as an improved self-pickup area. And location analytics suggest that the location’s offerings are resonating: The Tacoma store’s convenient set-up appears to help speed up shopping trips, as reflected by reduced dwell times. And over the past two quarters, YoY visits at the Tacoma Kohl’s have significantly outperformed other area locations.
But going small isn’t the only recipe for retail success in 2025. Some chains are finding that bigger is better – creating gigantic stores that offer an unforgettable shopping experience, and keep customers coming back.
Convenience stores are rarely known for their size – but Buc-ee’s, the Texan favorite that holds the record for the largest c-store in the world, is the exception that proves the rule. Many of Buc-ee’s locations exceed 70,000 square feet. And over the past 12 months, Buc-ee’s has enjoyed consistent YoY visit growth, even as the broader category has languished. The massive c-store’s over-the-top offerings, from homemade fudge to Beaver Nuggets, have cemented Buc-ee’s reputation as a destination in its own right.
Supersized store formats have also fueled success in the recreational and sporting goods space. Dick’s House of Sport, Bass Pro Shop, and other chains have invested in expansive, experiential stores meant to serve as community hubs for sports fans and outdoor enthusiasts. And expanding Midwestern and Mountain State brand Scheels is emerging as a benchmark for this approach.
Roughly half of Scheels stores span at least 200,000 square feet, featuring attractions like Ferris wheels, massive saltwater aquariums, shooting galleries, archery lanes, and more. Unsurprisingly, these entertainment-oriented spaces draw more weekend crowds than other sporting goods stores. The chain has also grown its audience, outperforming the wider sector for YoY visit growth.
The takeaway? There’s no single formula for retail success in 2025. But whether scaled-down and curated or grandiose and experiential, retail chains that intentionally and creatively leverage their physical spaces to engage audiences will continue to thrive.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit Placer.ai.
So far, 2025 has completely shifted the retail industry away from its status quo. Sectors that appeared to be on the rise at the end of 2024 have seen a stall in momentum, while others that faced challenging terrain last year have found some new opportunities. Economic uncertainty and changes in consumer sentiment have pushed consumers to be even more value oriented than we observed over the last two years.
Consumers are also looking to prepare themselves appropriately for future headwinds; in many cases this change is reflected in the types of retailers shopped. One sector of non-discretionary retail that had been at the forefront of this trend over the past few years has been dollar & discount chains. This group of retailers benefited from increasing inflationary pressures and an enhanced consumer focus on value. Beyond changing consumer behaviors, the sector also expanded the number of store locations and range of communities covered across the country, which brought more value-centered options to shoppers beyond superstores.
Last year (2024) represented a shift in the dollar & discount category, with visitation decelerating throughout the year according to Placer’s foot traffic estimates. Market saturation, challenges within individual chains, and the constriction of buying power among lower income households all contributed to a year that wasn’t up to expectations. However, 2025 has proven to be a new opportunity for chains to regain their footing with consumers.
Year-to-date, the industry is running up 3% in visits compared to the same period last year; while this isn’t necessarily far off the trends in 2024, it certainly is outperforming other non-discretionary sectors. Looking at the performance by retail chain reveals that Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Five Below are all overperforming the total category as well.
One trend that has continued from 2024 for top performing chains is consumer loyalty. Dollar General and Dollar Tree have seen an increase in loyal visitors, defined as visiting three or more times per month, compared to last year. Dollar General specifically also has a very high level of loyal visitors, with 36% of visitors shopping three times per month. Dollar stores fill a distinct need in shoppers’ retail rolodex, and especially as chains focus on expanding their assortments, the value proposition for customers becomes further cemented.
Dollar chains are primed to be an asset to consumers as economic and financial uncertainty continues, but consumers may also continue to be more discerning overall. Dollar chains must continue to innovate and expand assortments, particularly in grocery, to stay competitive as warehouse clubs and superstores also vie for attention.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
The drugstore and pharmacy space has faced significant challenges in recent years, and recently, Rite Aid announced that it would be closing all its locations. We took a look at the location intelligence for Rite Aid and the chains buying its closing locations to see how this closure might affect visits to the other chains.
The past few years have seen a dramatic shift in the way people purchase their prescriptions and other health-related sundries – and Rite Aid, in particular, was heavily affected by this shift. The chain had made several attempts over the past few years to rightsize and restructure in hopes of turning around its fortunes. But in May 2025, amidst bankruptcy proceedings, the company announced it would be closing all of its remaining locations and selling its business – primarily to CVS Pharmacy, with some going to Walgreens, Albertsons, Kroger, and Giant Eagle.
Rite Aid had already spent much of 2023 and 2024 closing stores, a factor that certainly fueled its 37.2% year-over-year (YoY) dip in foot traffic in Q1 2025. Meanwhile, CVS – which has also been closing stores – saw its visits and visits per location grow in Q1 2025, by 2.6% and 5.1%, respectively. And Walgreens, in the midst of its own rightsizing moves, experienced relatively flat visit numbers, with only minor YoY dips.
CVS is poised to be a major beneficiary of Rite Aid’s closure, taking over business from hundreds of its locations. And a look at demographic and psychographic data shows that the move stands to offer CVS greater access to older consumers – a key demographic in the pharmacy space. Rite Aid’s stores also attract a more middle-income shopper, helping to broaden CVS’ customer base.
A look at geographic segmentation data shows that CVS’s assumption of Rite Aid business will also grant it greater inroads into semirural and urban audiences.
Rite Aid has its largest presence in California (347 stores), Pennsylvania (345 locations), and New York (178 stores). And data from Esri: Tapestry Segmentation highlights differences in where shoppers at the two drugstore chains tend to come from – both nationwide and in its major markets.
CVS sees higher shares of “Suburban Periphery” visitors in all the analyzed markets, while Rite Aid sees higher shares of “Semirural” visitor segments, both nationwide and across its largest markets. This reinforces that CVS stands to significantly expand its footprint in less dense, semi-rural communities by acquiring Rite Aid assets.
While some common threads can be seen across visitor types by state, there are also notable differences, highlighting the importance of diversification across geographic segments for comprehensive market coverage. For instance, in New York, Rite Aid holds a higher share of visitors from “Principal Urban Centers” (18.8%) than CVS (13.3%). This suggests CVS may be able to expand both its semirural and urban reach as it assumes Rite Aid's former customer base.
Rite Aid’s closure highlights the challenges facing the retail healthcare segment – but it also opens up new opportunities for other chains as they absorb these closed stores.
What will the retail pharmacy and healthcare segment look like in the coming months? Visit Placer.ai/anchor for the latest data-driven retail insights.
First Eataly opened introducing patrons to the delights of freshly made pasta, mozzarella, and delectable ragu. With its all-in-one grocery and food hall appeal, one could savor delicacies from different regions of Italy. Jose Andres also raised the bar with his Mercado Little Spain at Hudson Yards, transporting you to Spain with its jamon iberico, crowd favorite Jaleo, and a host of Spanish restaurants. Now we cross culinary continents over to Asia as Jagalchi Food Hall and Grocery Store opens at Serramonte Center in Daly City, to the joy of aficionados of Korean food.
At 75,000 sq ft, Jagalchi takes over a former JCPenney store. Inside, separate seafood, meat, and produce areas await. The butcher offers high-end meats like Japanese A5 wagyu ribeye. At the oyster bar, one can find oysters and sushi. For those wanting hot food, snacks like freshly fried Korean pancakes, fried potato swirls, rose tteokboki and mandu (meat dumplings) are available for purchase.
In the middle of the store is a Michelin starred restaurant, Pogu, where diners can choose from authentic Korean dishes with a contemporary twist, such as eel bibimbap, seafood and tofu hotpot, and buckwheat noodles.
To further enhance the feeling of a jaunt to Korea, K-pop music wafts through the air and a large selection of K-beauty is available to peruse. Shoppers note the modern interior and trendy vibe with some calling it the Erewhon of Korean grocery stores. To add to the experiential feeling, there are carts labeled with street food that give you that Asian night-market alley feeling. And to complete the culinary experience, Jagalchi offers a wide variety of sool, or Korean rice wines, such as makgeolli or soju.
No meal would be complete without dessert and Jagalchi has an onsite bakery, Basquia, which features rice-flour baked goodies. Crowd pleasers include strawberry sulpang, made of a special sweet and fluffy bread with hints of rice wine flavoring, as well as the latest viral sensation, Dubai chocolate. Another cross-cultural sweet treat is the Su Jeong Gwa latte w/oat milk, which basically is a Korean horchata.
Jagalchi opened on March 28, 2025 (Friday), and the first Saturday, March 29, 2025 resulted in a 60% visitation increase compared to Saturday, Jan 4, 2025. The hype has died down a bit, but overall traffic visitation levels are averaging at least 30% higher on Saturdays compared to pre-opening.
Whereas Serramonte Center was facing declining year-over-year visit trends in the first quarter of the year, the opening of Jagachi has provided a jolt of excitement for the shopping center, putting it into positive year-over-year traffic for the last month.
An additional benefit for Serramonte Center is that Jagachi is attracting a higher proportion of wealthy segments, such as Educated Urbanites and Ultra Wealthy Families, which could potentially result in additional cross-shopping among patrons with more disposable income.
In closing, as shopping centers experiment with new tenants for anchor closures for department stores, opportunity awaits with new brands and concepts such as experiential food halls and grocery stores.
For more data-driven retail and dining insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
Memorial Day – the unofficial start of the summer season – is typically accompanied by major retail promotions and movie releases. We dove into the visit data to see how consumers celebrated the holiday and see how brick-and-mortar retail traffic compared to last year's numbers.
Memorial Day weekend brought a visit boost to retail chains nationwide, with the holiday's impact already felt on Friday, May 23rd 2025 as traffic spiked 10.0% compared to the YTD (January 1st to May 26th) Friday average. But comparing the data with last year's numbers shows that year-over-year (YoY) visits remained essentially flat.
Critically, this stability in Memorial Day week retail visits follows several weeks of year-over-year (YoY) traffic increases, likely due to consumer pull-forward of demand. So the fact that consumers still came out to shop Memorial Day sales – even after weeks of increased activity – suggests that brick-and-mortar retail remains resilient despite the wider macroeconomic shifts.
Diving into the apparel industry reveals that traditional apparel received a healthy Memorial Boost. And sportswear and athleisure – which may carry a slightly higher price point – saw the largest Memorial Day spikes compared to the year-to-date (YTD) average as shoppers took advantage of holiday promotions.
Meanwhile, off-price retailers saw relatively muted boosts compared to the YTD numbers, perhaps because shoppers prioritized time-sensitive bargains over the off-price segment's regular discounts. But the category saw a substantial increase in YoY visits, demonstrating consumers' ongoing value orientation.
Memorial Day is also a time for getting together with family and friends – often over a barbecue, picnic, or other food-forward events. As a result, grocery stores, BevAlc retailers, discount & dollar stores, and superstores all received traffic boosts compared to the YTD average, with BevAlc seeing the largest spike in visits.
Grocery stores, BevAlc retailers, and discount & dollar stores also saw YoY visit increases – perhaps suggesting an increase in Memorial Day socializing compared to 2024.
While several retail categories saw significant Memorial Day-driven visit boosts, the largest increase in traffic by a long shot went to movie theaters. Combined visits to AMC, Regal, and Cinemark were up 423.6% on Monday, May 26th 2025 compared to the YTD Sunday average, with combined weekly visits to the three chains up 92.4% for the week.
The Memorial Day visit spikes – likely driven by the success of new releases such as Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stitch follow weeks of high traffic as films including A Minecraft Movie and Sinners drove significant traffic increases at movie theaters nationwide.
This ongoing movie theater momentum suggests that, despite past concerns about streaming and changing consumer habits, the theatrical experience continues to hold significant appeal.
Overall, the Memorial Day 2025 data paints a picture of a resilient consumer ready to engage with both retail promotions and entertainment experiences. The data also suggests that, while brick-and-mortar retail continues to attract consumers on retail milestones, entertainment is reclaiming its role as a powerful draw for holiday spending.
For more data-driven consumer insights, visit placer.ai/anchor.
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1) Broad-based growth: All four grocery formats grew year-over-year in Q2 2025, with traditional grocers posting their first rebound since early 2024.
2) Value grocers slow: After leading during the 2022–24 trade-down wave, value grocer growth has decelerated as that shift matures.
3) Fresh formats surge: Now the fastest-growing segment, fueled by affluent shoppers seeking health, wellness, and convenience.
4) Bifurcation widens: Growth concentrated at both the low-income (value) and high-income (fresh) ends, highlighting polarized spending.
5) Shopping missions diverge: Short trips are rising, supporting fresh formats, while traditional grocers retain loyal stock-up customers and value chains capture fill-in trips through private labels.
6) Traditional grocers adapt: H-E-B and Harris Teeter outperformed by tailoring strategies to their core geographies and demographics.Bifurcation of Consumer Spending Help Fresh Format Lead Grocery Growth
Grocery traffic across all four major categories – value grocers, fresh format, traditional grocery, ethnic grocers – was up year over year in Q2 2025 as shoppers continue to engage with a wide range of grocery formats. Traditional grocery posted its first YoY traffic increase since Q1 2024, while ethnic grocers maintained their steady pattern of modest but consistent gains.
Value grocers, which dominated growth through most of 2024 as shoppers prioritized affordability, continued to expand but have now ceded leadership to fresh-format grocers. Rising food costs between 2022 and 2024 drove many consumers to chains like Aldi and Lidl, but much of this “trade-down” movement has already occurred. Although price sensitivity still shapes consumer choices – keeping the value segment on an upward trajectory – its growth momentum has slowed, making it less of a driver for the overall sector.
Fresh-format grocers have now taken the lead, posting the strongest YoY traffic gains of any category in 2025. This segment, anchored by players like Sprouts, appeals to the highest-income households of the four categories, signaling a growing influence of affluent shoppers on the competitive grocery landscape. Despite accounting for just 7.0% of total grocery visits in H1 2025, the segment’s rapid gains point to a broader shift: premium brands emphasizing health and wellness are emerging as the primary engine of growth in the grocery sector.
The fact that value grocers and fresh-format grocers – segments with the lowest and highest median household incomes among their customer bases – are the two categories driving the most growth underscores how the bifurcation of consumer spending is playing out in the grocery space as well. On one end, price-sensitive shoppers continue to seek out affordable options, while on the other, affluent consumers are fueling demand for premium, health-oriented formats. This dual-track growth pattern highlights how widening economic divides are reshaping competitive dynamics in grocery retail.
1) Broad-based growth: All four grocery categories posted YoY traffic gains in Q2 2025.
2) Traditional grocery rebound: First YoY increase since Q1 2024.
3) Ethnic grocers: Continued steady but modest upward trend.
4) Value grocers: Still growing, but slowing after most trade-down activity already occurred (2022–24).
5) Fresh formats: Now the fastest-growing segment, driven by affluent shoppers and interest in health & wellness.
6) Market shift: Premium, health-oriented brands are becoming the new growth driver in grocery.
7) Bifurcation of spending: Growth at both value and fresh-format grocers highlights a polarization in consumer spending patterns that is reshaping grocery competition.
Over the past two years, short grocery trips (under 10 minutes) have grown far more quickly than longer visits. While they still make up less than one-quarter of all U.S. grocery trips, their steady expansion suggests this behavioral shift is here to stay and that its full impact on the industry has yet to be realized.
One format particularly aligned with this trend is the fresh-format grocer, where average dwell times are shorter than in other categories. Yet despite benefiting from the rise of convenience-driven shopping, fresh formats attract the smallest share of loyal visitors (4+ times per month). This indicates they are rarely used for a primary weekly shop. Instead, they capture supplemental trips from consumers looking for specific needs – unique items, high-quality produce, or a prepared meal – who also value the ability to get in and out quickly.
In contrast, leading traditional grocers like H-E-B and Kroger thrive on a classic supermarket model built around frequent, comprehensive shopping trips. With the highest share of loyal visitors (38.5% and 27.6% respectively), they command a reliable customer base coming for full grocery runs and taking time to fill their carts.
Value grocers follow a different, but equally effective playbook. Positioned as primary “fill-in” stores, they sit between traditional and fresh formats in both dwell time and visit frequency. Many rely on limited assortments and a heavy emphasis on private-label goods, encouraging shoppers to build larger baskets around basics and store brands. Still, the data suggests consumers reserve their main grocery hauls for traditional supermarkets with broader selections, while using value grocers to stretch budgets and stock up on essentials.
1) Short trips surge: Under-10-minute visits have grown fastest, signaling a lasting behavioral shift.
2) Fresh formats thrive on convenience: Small footprints, prepared foods, and specialty items align with quick missions.
3) Traditional grocers retain loyalty: Traditional grocers such as H-E-B and Kroger attract frequent, comprehensive stock-up trips.
4) Value grocers fill the middle ground: Limited assortments and private label drive larger baskets, but main hauls remain with traditional supermarkets.
5) Fresh formats as supplements: Fresh format grocers such as The Fresh Market capture quick, specialized trips rather than weekly shops.
While broad market trends favor value and fresh-format grocers, certain traditional grocers are proving that a tailored strategy is a powerful tool for success. In the first half of 2025, H-E-B and Harris Teeter significantly outperformed their category's modest 0.6% average year-over-year visit growth, posting impressive gains of 5.6% and 2.8%, respectively. Their success demonstrates that even in a polarizing environment, there is ample room for traditional formats to thrive by deeply understanding and catering to a specific target audience.
These two brands achieve their success with distinctly different, yet equally focused, demographic strategies. H-E-B, a Texas powerhouse, leans heavily into major metropolitan areas like Austin and San Antonio. This urban focus is clear, with 32.6% of its visitors coming from urban centers and their peripheries, far above the category average. Conversely, Harris Teeter has cultivated a strong following in suburban and satellite cities in the South Atlantic region, drawing a massive 78.3% of its traffic from these areas. This deliberate targeting shows that knowing your customer's geography and lifestyle remains a winning formula for growth.
1) Traditional grocers can still be competitive: H-E-B (+5.6% YoY) and Harris Teeter (+2.8% YoY) outpaced the category average of +0.6% in H1 2025.
2) H-E-B’s strategy: Strong urban focus, with 32.6% of traffic from major metro areas like Austin and San Antonio.
3) Harris Teeter’s strategy: Suburban and satellite city focus, with 78.3% of traffic from South Atlantic suburbs.
1. The hypergrowth of Costco, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General between 2019 and 2025 has fundamentally changed the brick-and-mortar retail landscape.
2. Overall visits to Target and Walmart have remained essentially stable even as traffic to the new retail giants skyrocketed – so the increased competition is not necessarily coming at legacy giants' expense. Instead, each retail giant is filling a different need, and success now requires excelling at specific shopping missions rather than broad market dominance.
3. Cross-shopping has become the new normal, with Walmart and Target maintaining their popularity even as their relative visit shares decline, creating opportunities for complementary rather than purely competitive strategies.
4. Dollar stores are rapidly graduating from "fill-in" destinations to primary shopping locations, signaling a fundamental shift in how Americans approach everyday retail.
5. Walmart still enjoys the highest visit frequency, but the other four chains – and especially Dollar General – are gaining ground in this realm.
6. Geographic and demographic specialization is becoming the key differentiator, as each chain carves out distinct niches rather than competing head-to-head across all markets and customer segments.
Evolving shopper priorities, economic pressures, and new competitors are reshaping how and where Americans buy everyday goods. And as value-focused players gain ground, legacy retail powerhouses are adapting their strategies in a bid to maintain their visit share. In this new consumer reality, shoppers no longer stick to one lane, creating a complex ecosystem where loyalty, geography, and cross-visitation patterns – not just market share – define who is truly winning.
This report explores the latest retail traffic data for Walmart, Target, Costco, Dollar Tree, and Dollar General to decode what consumers want from retail giants in 2025. By analyzing visit patterns, loyalty trends, and cross-shopping shifts, we reveal how fast-growing chains are winning over consumers and uncover the strategies helping legacy players stay competitive in today's value-driven retail landscape.
In 2019, Walmart and Target were the two major behemoths in the brick-and-mortar retail space. And while traffic to these chains remains close to 2019 levels, overall visits to Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Costco have increased 36.6% to 45.9% in the past six years. Much of the growth was driven by aggressive store expansions, but average visits per location stayed constant (in the case of Dollar Tree) or grew as well (in the case of Dollar General and Costco). This means that these chains are successfully filling new stores with visitors – consumers who in the past may have gone to Walmart or Target for at least some of the items now purchased at wholesale clubs and dollar stores.
This substantial increase in visits to Costco, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree has altered the competitive landscape in which Walmart and Target operate. In 2019, 55.9% of combined visits to the five retailers went to Walmart. Now, Walmart’s relative visit share is less than 50%. Target received the second-highest share of visits to the five retailers in 2019, with 15.9% of combined traffic to the chains. But Between January and July 2025, Dollar General received more visits than Target – even though the discount store had received just 12.1% of combined visits in 2019.
Some of the growth of the new retail giants could be attributed to well-timed expansion. But the success of these chains is also due to the extreme value orientation of U.S. consumers in recent years. Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Costco each offer a unique value proposition, giving today's increasingly budget-conscious shoppers more options.
Walmart’s strategy of "everyday low prices" and its strongholds in rural and semi-rural areas reflect its emphasis on serving broad, value-focused households – often catering to essential, non-discretionary shopping.
Dollar General serves an even larger share of rural and semi-rural shoppers than Walmart, following its strategy of bringing a curated selection of everyday basics to underserved communities. The retailer's packaging is typically smaller than Walmart's, which allows Dollar General to price each item very affordably – and its geographic concentration in rural and semi-rural areas also highlights its direct competition to Walmart.
By contrast, Target and Costco both compete for consumer attention in suburban and small city settings, where shopper profiles tilt more toward families seeking one-stop-shopping and broader discretionary offerings. But Costco's audience skews slightly more affluent – the retailer attracts consumers who can afford the membership fees and bulk purchasing requirements – and its visit growth may be partially driven by higher income Target shoppers now shopping at Costco.
Dollar Tree, meanwhile, showcases a uniquely balanced real estate strategy. The chain's primary strength lies in suburban and small cities but it maintains a solid footing in both rural and urban areas. The chain also offers a unique value proposition, with a smaller store format and a fixed $1.25 price point on most items. So while the retailer isn't consistently cheaper than Walmart or Dollar General across all products, its convenience and predictability are helping it cement its role as a go-to chain for quick shopping trips or small quantities of discretionary items. And its versatile, three-pronged geographic footprint allows it to compete across diverse markets: Dollar Tree can serve as a convenient, quick-trip alternative to big-box retailers in the suburbs while also providing essential value in both rural and dense urban communities.
As each chain carves out distinct geographic and demographic niches, success increasingly depends on being the best option for particular shopping missions (bulk buying, quick trips, essential needs) rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
Still, despite – or perhaps due to – the increased competition, shoppers are increasingly spreading their visits across multiple retailers: Cross-shopping between major chains rose significantly between 2019 and 2025. And Walmart remains the most popular brick-and-mortar retailer, consistently ranking as the most popular cross-shopping destination for visitors of every other chain, followed by Target.
This creates an interesting paradox when viewed alongside the overall visit share shift. Even as Walmart and Target's total share of visits has declined, their importance as a secondary stop has actually grown. This suggests that the legacy retail giants' dip in market share isn't due to shoppers abandoning them. Instead, consumers are expanding their shopping routines by visiting other growing chains in addition to their regular trips to Walmart and Target, effectively diluting the giants' share of a larger, more fragmented retail landscape.
Cross-visitation to Costco from Walmart, Target, and Dollar Tree also grew between 2019 and 2025, suggesting that Costco is attracting a more varied audience to its stores.
But the most significant jumps in cross-visitation went to Dollar Tree and Dollar General, with cross-visitation to these chains from Target, Walmart, and Costco doubling or tripling over the past six years. This suggests that these brands are rapidly graduating from “fill-in” fare to primary shopping destinations for millions of households.
The dramatic rise in cross-visitation to dollar stores signals an opportunity for all retailers to identify and capitalize on specific shopping missions while building complementary partnerships rather than viewing every chain as direct competition.
Walmart’s status as the go-to destination for essential, non-discretionary spending is clearly reflected in its exceptional loyalty rates – nearly half its visitors return at least three times per month on average -between January to July 2025, a figure virtually unchanged since 2019. This steady high-frequency visitation underscores how necessity-driven shopping anchors customer routines and keeps Walmart atop the retail loyalty ranks.
But the data also reveals that other retail giants – and Dollar General in particular – are steadily gaining ground. Dollar General's increased visit frequency is largely fueled by its strategic emphasis on adding fresh produce and other grocery items, making it a viable everyday stop for more households and positioning it to compete more directly with Walmart.
Target also demonstrates a notable uptick in loyal visitors, with its share of frequent shoppers visiting at least three times a month rising from 20.1% to 23.6% between 2019 and 2025. This growth may suggest that its strategic initiatives – like the popular Drive Up service, same-day delivery options, and an appealing mix of essentials and exclusive brands – are successfully converting some casual shoppers into repeat customers.
Costco stands out for a different reason: while overall visits increased, loyalty rates remained essentially unchanged. This speaks to Costco’s unique position as a membership-based outlet for targeted bulk and premium-value purchases, where the shopping behavior of new visitors tends to follow the same patterns as those of its already-loyal core. As a result, trip frequency – rooted largely in planned stock-ups – remains remarkably consistent even as the warehouse giant grows foot traffic overall.
Dollar Tree currently has the smallest share of repeat visitors but is improving this metric. As it successfully encourages more frequent trips and narrows the loyalty gap with its larger rivals, it's poised to become an increasing source of competition for both Target and Costco.
The increase in repeat visits and cross-shopping across the five retail giants showcases consumers' current appetite for value-oriented mass merchants and discount chains. And although the retail giants landscape may be more fragmented, the data also reveals that the pie itself has grown significantly – so the increased competition does not necessarily need to come at the expense of legacy retail giants.
The retail landscape of 2025 demands a fundamental shift from zero-sum competition to strategic complementarity, where success lies in owning specific shopping missions rather than fighting for total market dominance. Retailers that forego attempting to compete on every front and instead clearly communicate their mission-specific value propositions – whether that's emergency runs, bulk essentials, or family shopping experiences – may come out on top.
