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The U.S. box office had a particularly strong 2023. Barbenheimer was the word out of everyone’s mouths over the summer, but other films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Super Mario Bros. helped boost both sales and visits.
How was the overall theater performance compared to 2022 and 2019? Who’s visiting these chains? And what can cinemas do to boost visits during lulls? We take a closer look at location intelligence for the three major theaters – AMC, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark – to find out.
Last year started on a high note, likely related to the strong box office performance of “Avatar: The Way of Water” (which may have also caused January 2024’s visit lag in comparison).
The “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” release in April helped spike visits further, with foot traffic to AMC, Regal Cinemas, and Cinemark increasing by 43.2%, 36.2%, and 40.8%, respectively. And July brought with it two of the most successful movie releases of all time – “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” – which topped box office charts for weeks.
Both films were released in late July, with the massive August visit spikes showing the full power of the two movies. “The Taylor Swift: Eras Tour” movie release in October also boosted visits, though AMC and Cinemark appear to have been the primary beneficiaries of the Swifty-driven foot traffic increase.
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Year-over-four-year (Yo4Y) foot traffic trends offer a broader picture of how out-of-home entertainment is faring. The pandemic forced many movie theaters to shut their doors as social distancing guidelines made going to the movies impossible. In tandem, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime became major movie studios in their own right.
The increase in at-home entertainment may have something to do with the overall Yo4Y decline in movie theater visits. Despite last year’s success, foot traffic data shows that fewer people are visiting theaters in 2023 than in 2019. Some of the dip is likely due to the chains’ rightsizing, with both AMC and Regal downsizing their fleet in recent years. But the success of this past summer’s blockbusters still brought visits to the two chains close to pre-pandemic numbers – and drove a positive Yo4Y visit surge to Cinemark – indicating that the right feature film can still draw crowds to cinemas nationwide.
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A closer look at the psychographic characteristics of visitors to the three movie theater chains reveals that families are overrepresented in the chains’ trade areas, while young professionals are underrepresented: Consumer segments identified by the Spatial.ai: PersonaLive dataset as “Ultra Wealthy Families” and “Wealthy Suburban Families” were more prevalent in the theaters’ captured* markets than in their potential markets, while “Young Professionals” were less prevalent. With some analysts lamenting the death of superhero movies, movie studios looking for the next big idea may want to invest in more family-friendly films to cater to these theater-going family segments.
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*A chain’s captured market weighs each CBG according to the actual number of visits originating to the chain from that CBG. A chain’s potential market refers to the population residing in a given trade area, weighted to reflect the number of households in each Census Block Group (CBG) comprising the trade area. A chain’s captured market weighs each CBG according to the actual number of visits originating to the chain from that CBG.
Unsurprisingly, movie theaters were busiest on the weekends – Saturday and Sunday received the lion's share of visits across all analyzed cinema chains, followed by Fridays. But the busiest non-Friday or weekend day was Tuesday – likely thanks to the theater chains’ "Discount Tuesday" special.
Cinemark experienced the largest Tuesday surge – with 12.6% of its weekly visits occurring on its discount day – perhaps due to the company’s decision to extend its discount to non-club members. AMC and Regal also received more visits on Tuesdays than they did during every other weekday (except for Friday).
As theaters continue to find creative ways to remain competitive in the evolving world of entertainment, “Discount Tuesdays” underscore the significance of a good deal when looking to drive visits to theaters.
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Movie theater visits exceeded all expectations in 2023 as film enthusiasts flocked to watch any number of major box-office releases. Will this momentum continue into 2024?
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This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.0, which implements improvements to our extrapolation capabilities, adds short visit monitoring, and enhances visit detection.
With Q4 2023 under our belts, we dove into the data to check in with leading eyewear brands Warby Parker and America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses – both of which have expanded their brick-and-mortar footprints in recent years. How did they fare in the final months of 2023? And what does their performance bode for the future of offline eyewear sales this year?
Warby Parker, the digitally-native darling that burst onto the scene in 2010 as an online-only retailer, opened its first physical store in 2013 and now operates some 250 venues across 38 states and the District of Columbia. And the trendy eyewear brand’s visits continue to grow alongside its expanding store fleet, with chain-wide year-over-year (YoY) foot traffic increases ranging from 16.6% to 37.0%. Warby Parker’s continued offline flourishing – despite the chain’s online origins – highlights the continued importance of physical stores for the glasses-buying experience.
National Vision’s America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses – the discount eyewear chain that features more than 900 locations nationwide – has also been on a growth trajectory. Over the past several months, the chain saw consistent YoY visit increases, partly driven by its expanding physical presence. And in Q3 2023, the brand also reported a rise in comparable store sales – showcasing healthy demand for its offerings.
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What is the secret to the success of these very different chains? To explore some of the factors driving traffic to Warby Parker and America’s Best, we segmented the audiences of their trade areas with demographic data from STI’s PopStats and psychographics from Spatial.ai’s PersonaLive – and the results were striking.
Over the past four years, the median household income (HHI) of Warby Parker’s potential market – i.e. the census block groups (CBGs) from which the chain draws its customers, weighted to reflect each one’s population size – has decreased. This indicates that as Warby Parker has expanded its fleet, it has opened stores in areas that are slightly less affluent than Warby Parker’s legacy markets – although the median HHI in these newer markets also stands significantly above the nationwide median of $69.5K.
But over the same period, the median HHI of the brand’s captured market continued to climb. (A chain’s captured market is derived by weighting the CBGs in its trade area according to the share of visitors from each CBG – thus mirroring the characteristics of the chain’s actual visitor base). The increase in captured market median HHI over time indicates that Warby Parker has been successful at reaching well-to-do audiences even within its newer, more economically diverse markets.
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Unlike Warby Parker, America’s Best Contacts & Eyeglasses serves a lower-HHI demographic. The median household income of the chain’s captured market in Q4 2023 was $66.2K – 4.7% below the nationwide median of $69.5K. And looking at America’s Best’s three largest regional markets – Texas, Florida, and California – shows that the chain’s captured market median HHI in each of these states is also lower than the relevant statewide baseline.
But while the chain’s visitor median HHI trends seem consistent across regions, diving deeper into the data suggests that the chain does attract different types of shoppers in different areas. Nationwide, the share of singles and individuals from large households in America’s Best’s captured market is just slightly above nationwide baselines. But in California, the share of large households in America’s Best’s captured market is 21.0% – significantly higher than the statewide baseline of 16.5%, while the share of singles falls below the Golden State’s baseline of 23.2%.
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Digital try-on and easy returns have made online glasses shopping a viable option for many consumers. But the continued offline success of Warby Parker and America’s Best shows that there’s still plenty of demand for brick-and-mortar eyewear stores – discount and higher-end alike. What lies in store for the offline eyewear space in 2024?
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This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.0, which implements improvements to our extrapolation capabilities, adds short visit monitoring, and enhances visit detection.
We checked in with AutoZone and O’Reilly – two pandemic winners from the auto parts industry – to understand what location intelligence reveals about the retailers in 2024.
AutoZone and O’Reilly Auto Parts are both major players in the multi-billion dollar automotive aftermarket industry with thousands of locations across the country. As car prices skyrocketed over the pandemic, visits to these retailers increased – and analyzing foot traffic patterns to these retailers reveals that although growth in the sector may be slowing down, leading auto parts chains are holding on to their pandemic gains.
On a year-over-year (YoY) basis, visits to AutoZone and O’Reilly Auto Parts continued growing in the first half of 2023 before stalling in Q3 2023 and dipping in Q4. But looking at year-over-four-year (Yo4Y) visits suggests that the drop may be due to the challenging comparison to an unusually strong period rather than to any drop in demand for auto parts. Last year’s visits to both AutoZone and O’Reilly Auto Parts were significantly higher than the chains’ 2019 baseline, with Q4 2023 visits exceeding Q4 2019 levels by 11.9% and 22.6% for AutoZone and O’Reilly Auto Parts, respectively.
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The pattern continued in January 2024, with visits to AutoZone and O’Reilly significantly higher than they were pre-pandemic, but slightly lower on a YoY basis. But the Q4 2023 YoY visit gaps narrowed for both chains, and used cars are still outselling new vehicle and fueling demand for car parts – so visits to the space are likely to remain strong in 2024.
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Analyzing the demographic data of visitors to O’Reilly Auto Parts and AutoZone reveals that both companies succeeded in staying far ahead of their pre-pandemic visit baseline despite attracting a large number of visitors from lower-income households. In 2023, the median household income (HHI) within the two chains’ potential market* trade area was lower than the nationwide median of $69.5K/year, while the median HHI in the captured market trade area was even lower.
The income level of AutoZone and O’Reilly Auto Parts’ visitor base may help explain the chains’ Yo4Y strength and the YoY lags. With prices for used cars still significantly higher than they were in 2019, budget-conscious consumers are likely looking to patch up their existing rides instead of trading them in for newer vehicles – which could explain the sustained Yo4Y growth. At the same time, the ongoing inflation is likely straining this segment’s available funds, which may account for the YoY dips towards the end of 2023.
*A chain’s potential market refers to the population residing in a given trade area, weighted to reflect the number of households in each Census Block Group (CBG) comprising the trade area. A chain’s captured market weighs each CBG according to the actual number of visits originating to the chain from that CBG.
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When focusing on the trade area median HHI, the visitor base of AutoZone and O’Reilly Auto Parts looks nearly identical. But looking at the psychographic makeup of the two brands’ trade areas highlights differences between the companies. Using the Experian: Mosaic dataset to analyze the audience segments in the chains’ trade areas revealed that AutoZone tended to attract more city-based visitors, while O’Reilly seems to draw more small-town and rural households. Data from the Spatial.ai: PersonaLive’s dataset supports this pattern – and the success of both chains indicates that there is plenty of demand for car parts across a variety of audience types.
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As both companies continue to expand, location intelligence indicates that there is plenty of demand for car parts to go around.
For more data-driven retail analysis, visit placer.ai/blog.
This blog includes data from Placer.ai Data Version 2.0, which implements improvements to our extrapolation capabilities, adds short visit monitoring, and enhances visit detection.
Coffee has been a popular topic for us the past few months. We looked at why the category should still post a solid 2024 despite being one of the stronger categories in the restaurant industry last year. We also examined loyalty trends among Starbucks visitors, and where that might trend in the quarters ahead.
This week, we’re revisiting Dutch Bros., which has been one of our favorite growth stories to watch going back to (and even before) the company’s initial public offering. During the quarter, the company posted 5% comparable-store sales growth, representing 100 basis points of acceleration from Q3 2023. The growth was driven by a combination of factors, including sequential improvement in customer traffic with particular strength in the mid-day and afternoon dayparts (something we see in Q4 2023 visits by daypart compared to Q4 2022). Our data indicates that the periods between 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM saw the largest increases in percentage of visits year-over-year.
What’s driving the growth in mid-day and afternoon dayparts? Management chalked it up to category innovation, including new product platforms like Protein Coffee as well as limited time offers (LTOs), including the successful Truffle Mocha platform that was introduced in Q4 2023. The company is mindful that new products can have an impact on speed of service but appears to be focused on new products that don’t add “a layer of extra complexity” but can still drive incremental visits (something our data also indicates this quarter). Mobile app ordering–something the company plans to test in the Arizona market before potentially rolling out to a multi-shop test–also offers an opportunity with potential to attract new visitors and introduce new occasions, though it will likely be a few years before this functionality contributes to visit counts and financial results.
Looking ahead, Dutch Bros expects to open 150-165 new locations in 2024, compared to the 159 opened across 13 states in 2023. Over time, the company still sees the opportunity for 4,000-plus shops, balanced with “a renewed emphasis on capital efficiency” and a longer-term shift toward more build-to-suit leases and a wider array of prototype units such as end caps (management expects to see the impact of these changes beginning in 2025). From a market standpoint, the company expects to have more openings in existing markets like California, have less relative openings in the Texas market, and opened its first location in Florida (Orlando) this week.
Valentine’s Day presents an opportunity – or at least lays on the pressure – for coupled-up consumers to shower their significant other with chocolates, flowers, or special gifts. And while some shoppers choose to order online or visit stores ahead of time to find the perfect Valentine’s Day gift, those who forgot to plan in advance can stop by brick-and-mortar retailers the day of to ensure they don’t show up to date night empty-handed. So which industries saw the largest boost on February 14th? And how did 2024’s patterns compare to last year’s trends? We dove into the data to find out.
Valentine’s Day may not be a major retail holiday – but the occasion still drives a mid-week visit boost across many retail categories, including Restaurants, Discount & Dollar Stores, Liquor Stores, Grocery, Superstores, Breakfast Shops, and Beauty & Spa. Comparing Valentine’s Day 2024 visits to average visit levels over the previous six Wednesdays reveals a significant jump in traffic compared to the typical mid-week shopping lull.
Restaurants saw the largest visit bump, with visits up 60.0% compared to the average number of Restaurant visits over the previous six Wednesdays. Others opted for a morning coffee or brunch date, driving a 19.7% increase in foot traffic to Breakfast, Coffee, Bakeries, and Dessert Shops. And some consumers seem to have chosen a romantic evening, leading to surges in Grocery and Liquor Store visits. Retailers carrying affordable gifts, including Discount & Dollar Stores, Superstores, and Beauty & Spa brands also benefited from the Valentine’s Day Boost.
And visits to the analyzed categories weren’t just up relative to the year-to-date Wednesday average – traffic across the board also rose relative to Valentine’s Day 2023, boding well for brick-and-mortar retail in 2024.
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Valentine’s Day is sometimes referred to – not always affectionately – as a Hallmark Holiday. And foot traffic data reveals that the day really does drive significant visit increases to Hallmark stores nationwide, with Valentine’s Day 2024 traffic up 123.2% relative to the previous six Wednesday average. The Paper Store, another major greeting card retailer, also saw a large jump in Valentine’s Day visits compared to the year-to-date same weekday average, and Walgreens and CVS – also major greeting card purveyors – received a visit boost as well.
At the same time, Hallmark, Walgreens, and CVS did not display the same year-over-year (YoY) increases as for the other categories. Instead, YoY Valentine’s Day visits stayed relatively steady – likely due to these chains’ store fleet contractions rather than to any drop in demand. Meanwhile, Valentine’s Day visits to The Paper Store grew by 10.8% YoY – perhaps aided by the company’s expansion.
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Valentine’s Day yields a clear mid-week boost for brick-and-mortar retail, driving visits to a variety of dining and retail segments. And this year’s Valentine’s Day seems to have been particularly successful, driving YoY jumps across many major categories and brands.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit our blog at placer.ai.
Sweetgreen, which IPO-ed in 2021, and CAVA – public since last year – are continuing their growth spurt. We dove into the location intelligence data to understand what is driving success for these emerging fast-casual leaders.
Restaurant visit growth slowed last year as inflation took a toll on discretionary spending. But despite the wider dining deceleration, foot traffic to CAVA and sweetgreen continued to increase, helped by consistent store fleet expansion. Both chains posted year-over-year (YoY) visit gains every month of 2023, even as overall foot traffic to the fast-casual category lagged.
The positive trends continued in the new year, when consumers braved the cold to drive a 18.4% and 22.3% YoY increase in January 2024 visits – despite the challenging comparison to an already impressive January 2023.
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Cava and sweetgreen’s success may be attributed to a variety of factors. Both chains are known for their healthy offerings, which may attract the many consumers prioritizing health and wellness in their food choices. Plant-forward meals have also been particularly popular recently, and both CAVA and sweetgreen’s produce-heavy menus align well with this trend.
The income level of the chains’ visitor bases may be another key driver of Cava and sweetgreen’s success. In general, the potential market trade areas of fast-casual dining chains consists of households with income (HHI) levels that are slightly above the nationwide median. The median HHI in the neighborhoods within those trade areas that feed the most visits to fast-casual chains (the chains’ captured market) is even higher.
CAVA and sweetgreen’s potential market trade area median HHIs in 2023 was significantly higher than that in the wider fast-casual category – and the captured market median HHI was even greater. The particularly affluent visitor bases of CAVA and sweetgreen were likely less impacted by last year’s economic headwinds, which may have helped the chains continue to grow their footprint – and visit numbers – despite the wider challenges in the space.
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The similarities between CAVA and sweetgreen extend beyond their high-income visitor bases and shared emphasis on healthy options – both chains also seem to attract a particularly high share of singles. CAVA and sweetgreen’s captured market trade area include 37.9% and 42.3% of one-person and non-family households, respectively, compared to to an average of 34.1% for the wider Fast-Casual category.
Diving into the psychographics confirms this pattern. The two chains’ captured markets include a larger percentage of Educated Urbanites, defined by Spatial.ai: PersonaLive as “Well educated young singles living in dense urban areas working relatively high paying jobs.” Young Professionals, defined as “Well-educated young professionals starting their careers in white-collar or technical jobs” and having an average household size of 1, are also overrepresented for CAVA and sweetgreen’s relative to the wider Fast-Casual category.
The large share of singles in these chains’ trade areas – especially combined with the high median HHI – likely means that CAVA and sweetgreen visitors have fewer overall expenses and fairly large discretionary budgets which can be spent on dining out.
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CAVA and sweetgreen thrived in 2023 and appears poised to continue growing in 2024, with visits to both chains skyrocketing even as foot traffic growth tapered off in the wider dining industry. And the company’s success in attracting high-income visitors from small households – who likely have the funds to continue spending on non-essentials despite the ongoing headwinds – means that both companies are well positioned for continued strength in the new year.
For more data-driven restaurant and dining insights, visit our blog at placer.ai.
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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.
