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How did Mother’s Day (May 12th, 2024) impact retail and dining foot traffic this year? We dove into the data to find out.
Urban legends notwithstanding, Mother’s Day wasn’t actually created by the greeting card industry. But the occasion hasn’t become known as the “Hallmark holiday” for nothing. Every year in the run-up to Mother’s Day, shoppers descend on the chain to purchase everything from cards to candy.
Most years, the day before Mother’s Day is Hallmark’s busiest day of the year, with Super Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas) a not-so-close second. In 2023, Mother’s Day was edged out by Super Saturday, which converged with Christmas Eve Eve to create a pre-holiday shopping bonanza for the ages.
And this year is shaping up to be no different: On May 11th, 2024 (the day before Mother’s Day), Hallmark experienced a major visit spike – leaving all other Saturdays, including the Saturday before Easter, in the dust.
But greeting card retailers like Hallmark aren’t the only ones to benefit from Mother’s Day. A look at foot traffic to major industries on May 11th, 2024 shows that retailers across segments – from Home Improvement chains to Superstores – enjoy substantial visit boosts on the day before Mother’s Day. (Recreational & Sporting Goods, not so much).
For Home Improvement, Department Stores, Hobbies, Gifts & Crafts, and Clothing, May 11th, 2024 was the busiest day of the year so far, while for Discount & Dollar Stores and Superstores it was superseded only by March 30th – the day before Easter.
While the day before Mother’s Day is an important retail milestone, Mother’s Day itself is an occasion for treating mom to a nice meal out. And though grabbing a bite at a fast food joint or fast-casual fave is lots of fun – it decidedly isn’t the Mother’s Day vibe. A special occasion calls for a splurge, and Mother’s Day is Full-Service Restaurants’ time to shine.
On May 12th, 2024, Quick-Service and Fast-Casual Restaurants received about the same number of visits as on an average Sunday this year. But Full-Service Restaurants saw visits skyrocket – outperforming an average Sunday by 49.6%.
And drilling down into the data for six of Mother’s Day’s busiest Full-Service Restaurant chains shows Olive Garden emerging as a major holiday winner – with 89.0% more visits on May 12th, 2024 than on an average Sunday this year. Olive Garden drew more visits this Mother’s Day than on any other day since the beginning of the year – with Valentine’s Day (February 14th, 2024) coming in a close second.
But the Italian-American cuisine giant certainly isn’t the only FSR to enjoy a substantial visit boost on the big day: Texas Roadhouse, Cracker Barrel General Store, Chili’s Grill & Bar, Applebee’s, and IHOP saw respective May 12th visit increases of 55.1%, 51.0%, 46.4%, 44.4%, and 29.3%, compared to an average Sunday.
Mother’s Day comes but once a year – and grateful offspring nationwide show their appreciation with gifts and celebratory meals, generating boons for businesses across categories.
With Father’s Day right around the corner, what kind of impact will Dad’s big day have on retail and restaurant visits? Will Recreational & Sporting Goods brands have their day in the sun?
For more data-driven retail and dining insights, follow placer.ai.
About the Mall Index: The Index analyzes data from 100 top-tier indoor malls, 100 open-air shopping centers (not including outlet malls) and 100 outlet malls across the country, in both urban and suburban areas. Placer.ai leverages a panel of tens of millions of devices and utilizes machine learning to make estimations for visits to locations across the country.
In April 2024, YoY mall visits slowed following two months of positive visit growth. For Indoor Malls, the decline was marginal – and Open-Air Shopping Centers saw visits remain on par with last year’s levels. But Outlet Malls saw a significant drop of 6.5% in visits.
Although at first glance this slowdown may suggest a resurgence of the retail challenges that plagued much of 2022 and 2023, a deeper dive into weekly visit trends paints a much rosier picture.
Indoor Malls and Open-Air Shopping Centers experienced robust YoY visit increases every week of April 2024 and into May, with the sole exception of the week of April 8th. This isolated drop appears to be due to a calendar discrepancy: In 2023, Easter fell on April 9th, while in 2024, the holiday fell on March 31st. So the week of April 8th, 2024 is being compared to the week immediately after the holiday (including Easter Monday) when malls likely experienced heightened activity due to gift returns and pent-up demand following holiday store closures. Though Easter Monday isn’t an official holiday in the U.S., many people likely take the day off – giving them more time to hit the stores.
Outlet Malls, which saw a steeper decline during the week of April 8th, appear to have been particularly impacted by the Easter calendar difference – shoppers may be especially likely to make the trek to an outlet mall on a holiday weekend, or on Easter Monday. But Outlet Malls also saw their positive momentum quickly recover.
The continued rise in weekly YoY mall visits signals continued retail strength into the spring of 2024.
Holiday retail foot traffic is typically characterized by two main spikes: a pre-holiday visit spike evident in the days preceding the holiday, and a post-holiday uptick driven largely by gift returns and pent-up demand after stores reopen. The Monday after Easter follows this pattern – and comparing this year’s post-Easter visit spike to the one observed in 2023 provides further evidence of the category’s resilience.
On Monday, April 1st, 2024 – the day after Easter – Indoor Malls, Open-Air Shopping Centers, and Outlet Malls all drew significantly more visits than on an average Monday. And this year’s post-Easter visit spikes – ranging from 22.5% to 27.8% – were even more impressive than last year’s. Outlet Malls, which may be more likely to draw visitors on the day after Easter, saw the biggest post-Easter visit spikes.
All three mall types also saw more absolute visits this year on the day after Easter than they did in 2023 – with April 1st, 2024 foot traffic to Indoor Malls, Open-Air Shopping Centers, and Outlet Malls up 8.7%, 12.3%, and 6.7%, respectively, compared to April 10th, 2023.
Weekly YoY visit data and post-Easter foot traffic trends show that malls remain on an upward trajectory. As inflation continues to ease, malls may regain some leverage and can potentially attract crowds more readily than they did in 2023.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit our blog at placer.ai.
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Off-price apparel chains continue to drive traffic in 2024. We dove into the latest location analytics for four of the largest brands – T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, and Burlington – to take a closer look at these retailers’ foot traffic growth and evolving visitor bases.
The off-price sector started off 2024 strong, with the four off-price leaders – T.J. Maxx, Marshalls (both owned by TJX Companies), Ross Dress for Less, and Burlington – consistently outperforming the wider non-off-price apparel segment. YoY visits to the four brands were also mostly positive for the period analyzed, in part thanks to the companies’ ongoing expansions.
Diving into the demographic composition of the four chains’ trade areas reveals that there are many formulas for success in the off-price space. And while some companies have found success by attracting families looking to stretch their budgets, others are growing their visits by drawing singles looking to stock up on the latest styles without breaking the bank.
T.J. Maxx and Marshalls – where YoY Q1 2024 visits grew 8.9% and 7.9%, respectively – both have relatively large shares of one-person households in their trade areas. Members of these one-person households are typically younger – often belonging to the coveted Gen-Z demographic – and TJX C.E.O. Ernie Herrman has emphasized the company’s success among this audience segment as an important growth driver.
Meanwhile, the 1.1% YoY increase in overall visits for Ross Dress for Less in Q1 2024 seems driven by the chain’s popularity among families – 28.4% of the chain’s captured market consists of households with children. And Burlington achieved its Q1 7.6% YoY visit growth by appealing to both demographics.
It seems, then, that each off-price leader has found a different formula for success by catering to a unique demographic mix.
Over the last several months, off-price apparel chains have outperformed traditional apparel retailers in YoY visits as they expand their real estate footprints. Taking on new territory, off-price retailers drive visits from a unique mix of households with children and singles.
For more data-driven retail insights, visit Placer.ai.
As visits to Superstores continue to rise, we analyzed recent foot traffic data for Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Club and dove into Walmart’s Q1 2024 regional performance.
Wholesale chains – which receive about 20% of all visits to Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club (owned by Walmart), and BJ’s Wholesale Club – generally outperformed classic superstore banners Target and Walmart during the first four months of the year. Visits to all three wholesale clubs analyzed were up every month on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, with Costco maintaining its lead in the space. Some of the success of wholesale clubs may be due to the makeup of their visitor base – Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s tend to serve a large share of consumers from family households, and these may be opting for more buying in bulk in an effort to stretch budgets.
But visits to more classic superstores are also heating up – following a muted performance in January, when an arctic blast kept many at home, foot traffic to Target grew YoY in February, March, and April.
Walmart also experienced visit growth for most of the period, despite the slight dip in April due to calendar shifts: Visits for the superstore giant dropped 8.5% in YoY for the week of April 1st - 8th 2024 compared to the traffic surges of Easter week 2023 (April 3rd - 9th 2023), impacting the overall monthly numbers, but visits returned to growth during the last two weeks of April (4.3% and 4.0% YoY, respectively, for the weeks of April 15th - 21st and 22nd -28th).
And while Walmart’s growth may not be quite as impressive as that of smaller superstores, the company has retained its position as the largest retailer in the U.S. Nationwide, the Walmart banner receives over 60% of all visits to Target, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s, and in most of the south, the superstore’s relative visit share exceeds 70%. In a handful of states – including the retailer’s home state of Arkansas along with Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wyoming – 4 out of every 5 visits to the five superstore chains analyzed go to Walmart.
And even as Walmart optimizes its fleet, analyzing the retailer’s Q1 2024 YoY visit increases by region reveals pockets of major growth throughout the country. In addition to the 2-5% traffic increases across most of the South – where the retailer already dominates the superstore space – Walmart is also posting impressive visit increases in the Northeast, Midwest, and Northwest, with the strongest growth in Minnesota, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.
As budget-strapped consumers continue looking for bargains, the legacy retail giant may still have room to grow even larger in 2024.
Superstore and wholesale club visits are on the rise as U.S. shoppers continue to defy predictions of a consumer spending slowdown while still looking for ways to stretch their budgets.
Will these trends continue as the year progresses?
Visit placer.ai to find out.
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Discount & Dollar Stores have become an important part of the wider retail landscape over the past couple of years, and location intelligence indicates that the category is continuing to gain momentum in 2024. We dove into the data for Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar to understand how these banners are performing and analyze the regional reach of each chain.
Recent visitation data for the major Discount & Dollar Store banners indicates that the category is still on the rise: Monthly visits to both Dollar General and Dollar Tree grew year-over-year (YoY) between December 2023 and March 2024. Dollar Tree-owned Family Dollar – which recently announced the closure of 1000 stores over the next couple of years – also saw its YoY traffic grow in February and March.
With the exception of the week of April 1st 2024 – when the Easter calendar shift caused a regular week in 2024 to be compared to the week of Easter in 2023 – visitation trends remained positive in April, highlighting the ongoing strength of the Discount & Dollar Store category. Even Family Dollar – which has already begun to close stores – saw its numbers remain on par with last year’s visit levels, indicating the ongoing demand for value-priced goods in 2024.
Looking at the Q1 2024 state-by-state relative visit share of the three chains – Dollar General, Dollar Tree, or Family Dollar – reveals some clear regional differences in consumer preferences across states.
Dollar Tree was more popular in the West, with the Dollar Tree brand leading in most western states and the company’s Family Dollar banner receiving the plurality of visits in Wyoming. Dollar Tree was also the most-visited chain in several states on the East Coast, including Maryland, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Dollar General, meanwhile, received the majority or plurality of the visit share in the rest of the country.
But although Dollar General does receive a majority of the combined Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar visit share nationwide, the Discount & Dollar Store category does not conform to a “winner-take-all” model. In many states, Dollar Tree’s visit share is just slightly lower than that of Dollar General.
In New York, for example, where Dollar General received 44.6% of the combined visit share in Q1 2024, 38.1% of visits in the same period went to Dollar Tree. And in Florida, where 44.2% of the combined visits to the three banners went to Dollar General, 38.2% of visits went to Dollar Tree. It seems, then, that even in states where Dollar General takes the lead, there is plenty of Discount & Dollar Store demand to sustain multiple players in the space.
Early 2024 data suggests that the Discount & Dollar Store sector is not slowing down any time soon. What will the rest of the year have in store for the space?
Visit placer.ai to find out.
Equinox hit the news this week as they rolled out a new $40,000 per year longevity membership called “Optimize by Equinox.” This program promises to provide a personalized health plan of action that includes personal training, nutrition, sleep coaching, and massage therapy. There will also be biomarker testing in partnership with Function Health and fitness testing. New York City and Highland Park, Texas are the pioneering locations for this program, with more to come. Placer took a look at the Highland Park location as well as one on Greenwich Ave in New York City. The Highland Park location has shown extraordinary year-over-year growth, with each month of the year showing increases compared to the prior year. The New York City location is a bit more mixed but had a strong showing year-over-year last fall and at the beginning of 2024.
A 2023 survey by A/B Consulting and Maveron VC suggested that almost half (46%) of people earning over $250,000 would spend the majority of their discretionary income on trying to improve health and longevity, compared to only 34% of people earning under $50,000. Bryan Johnson is a tech millionaire who is often in the press with his latest experiments at reversing aging. From routine MRIs to frequent sampling of bodily fluids, he is a rare example of what one might do to try to live forever if one had nearly unlimited means to do so. While not all of us have millions to spend on unlocking the secrets to the fountain of youth, there’s no doubt that wellness and longevity are top of mind for many people, be it endeavoring to walk 10,000 steps a day or aiming for a rainbow diet. Looking at Equinox in Highland Park in Dallas, TX we see that indeed, this wealthy enclave is an apt location to pioneer this longevity offering. In the true trade area capturing 70% of visits, more than 3 in 10 have a household income exceeding $200K.
The Spatial.ai PersonaLive dataset further cements the fact that the top visitor segments are a group with higher-than-average discretionary incomes, such as Young Professionals, Educated Urbanites, Sunset Boomers, and Ultra Wealthy Families.
Additional data from the AGS Behavior & Attitudes dataset indicates that among those living in trade areas comprising 70% of visits to the Highland Park Equinox, many are indeed health-oriented, over-indexing on behaviors such as exercising (index 122), being yoga enthusiasts (index 168), and utilizing mobile app fitness trackers (index 160). However, they tend to under-index on getting regular medical checkups (index 86) - which is exactly where Optimize could fit in with its frequent testing and personalized approach. In addition, this particular location might want to take advantage of the clamor for pedicures (index 137) and manicures (index 147) and consider increased retail media network exposure due to enthusiasm for health info from TV (index 159).
During the pandemic and its aftermath, Americans were on the move. Millions left expensive coastal markets for lower-cost destinations across the Sun Belt, while boomtowns such as Bozeman, Boise, and Austin struggled to keep pace with the influx of new residents.
That wave of relocation has since cooled, as return-to-office mandates, higher mortgage rates, and a shrinking affordability gap between coastal cities and many COVID-era hotspots have dampened the incentive to move. But even in a slower market, domestic migration remains one of the most powerful forces shaping local economies, housing markets, and consumer demand.
This report leverages AI-powered location analytics to examine the relocation patterns reshaping the United States in 2026 – where Americans are moving, the demographic and economic forces driving those decisions, and how retailers, investors, developers, and policymakers can respond to the opportunities and challenges created by these shifts.
Which major metros are attracting the most new residents? Which pandemic-era standouts have seen growth stall or reverse? And what factors best predict a large metro area's domestic migration growth potential in 2026?
The latest statewide migration data shows that the slower relocation pace observed in 2024 persisted into 2025. No state recorded net inflows or outflows exceeding 0.7% of its starting population. And while several smaller states continued to attract new residents at meaningful rates, none of the nation's six most populous states saw net in-migration exceed 0.2%.
Among those smaller states, South Carolina and Delaware led the nation with net in-migration equal to 0.7% of their populations, followed by Idaho (0.6%), Maine (0.5%), Tennessee (0.4%), and North Carolina (0.3%). For most of these states, migration accelerated relative to 2024, though Delaware's inflow rate moderated slightly and North Carolina held steady.
Despite their differences, these states tend to offer a similar mix of lifestyle amenities, relatively low congestion, and opportunities for growth. Many also benefit from business-friendly climates, favorable tax policies, or housing costs that remain attractive relative to the higher-cost markets from which they draw new residents.
At the other end of the spectrum was Vermont, which saw the nation’s largest net outflow as share of population in 2025, losing 0.4% of its population to domestic relocation. The decline deepens a reversal that first emerged in 2024, when the state swung to a net loss of 0.2%, after attracting inflows of 0.8% and 0.5% in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Vermont's reversal likely reflects a combination of factors, including return-to-office mandates and the waning appeal of remote work. Housing undersupply in the state may have also contributed, illustrating how important infrastructure investments are to sustaining migration gains over time.
Among the nation's six most populous states, Florida was the only one to see accelerating net in-migration in 2025, attracting new residents equal to 0.2% of its starting population, up from 0.1% the year before. Texas, by contrast, slowed from 0.1% net in-migration in 2024 to essentially flat in 2025, highlighting the cooling of what was once one of the country's strongest pandemic-era migration magnets.
Meanwhile, the legacy "exodus" states continue to lose residents, but at a slower pace than in previous years. Illinois and California have seen their migration deficits steadily narrow, with further improvement in 2025. Between 2022 and 2025, Illinois moved from -0.8% → -0.2% → -0.2% → -0.1%, while California moved from -0.9% → -0.4% → -0.3% → -0.2%. And though New York has held steady at -0.2% over the past two years, this marks a significant moderation from 2022, when the state experienced net outmigration equal to 1.1% of its population.
Statewide trends reveal important shifts, but a closer look at the nation's ten largest metropolitan areas suggests that broader interstate averages increasingly mask diverging local realities. Several metros are attracting residents through interstate domestic migration even when their states as a whole are experiencing little or no net migration growth.
Phoenix (+0.3%), for example, stood out as the nation's top-performing large metro in 2025, despite Arizona's absence from the list of leading migration destinations – with the majority of its inflow coming from out of state.
Dallas (+0.2%) ranked second, continuing its rebound from -0.1% in 2023 even as Texas' statewide migration gains cooled. Like Phoenix, Dallas drew a majority of its new residents from outside the state, underscoring its growing appeal as a national migration destination. Houston, meanwhile, moved in the opposite direction, falling from 0.1% net in-migration in 2023 to -0.1% in 2025. While it is too early to call this a sustained reversal, the divergence between the two metros may reflect Dallas's growing pull as a corporate magnet alongside rising housing costs and weather-related challenges in Houston.
Metro-level data also suggests that the pandemic-era "big-city exodus" narrative is continuing to fade. Los Angeles improved from -0.8% in 2023 to -0.3% in 2025, while New York held steady at -0.3% after improving in 2024. Even Miami (-0.6%), which ranked last among major metros despite Florida's continued statewide gains, saw its outflows moderate from 2023 levels. And while Illinois continued to post net outmigration, Chicago (0.0%) reached migration neutrality in 2025 after recording losses in both 2023 and 2024.
Despite Miami's struggles – and Florida’s relatively modest 0.2% inflow – a look beyond the top 10 large metros reveals that the Sunshine State is home to six of the nation's eight fastest-growing large metros nationwide.
Those top-performing metros, defined as CBSAs with 500K+ residents that added at least 0.8% of their population through net domestic migration over the past year, share a similar profile: lower housing costs, retiree appeal, suburban density, and an easy drive to a larger economic hub.
Much of the growth of these Florida metro areas, however, is being fueled from within Florida itself. While major out-of-state metros such as New York (6.1%) and Chicago (2.0%) remained important sources of new residents, nearly half of the net migration into Florida's top destination metros came from elsewhere in the state. In 2025, Miami (22.5%), Orlando (13.0%), Tampa (5.8%), and Naples (4.2%) together accounted for 45.5% of the net positive migration feeding these fast-growing markets.
The migration flows feeding the nation’s fastest-growing large metros suggest that affordability remains a powerful driver of domestic relocation.
In 2025, seven of the eight top destination metros analyzed above had lower typical home values than their largest feeder markets. Lakeland–Winter Haven, FL, for example, had a typical home value of $313.4K in December 2024, compared with $404.9K in Orlando and $380.2K in Tampa – its two largest sources of net migration. Even North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, FL – the most expensive Florida metro in this group – drew its largest share of net migration from the New York metro area, where home values are substantially higher.
The lone exception was Charleston–North Charleston, SC, whose largest source of net migration was Baltimore – a market with lower typical home values than the destination. Even in Charleston, however, affordability appears to have played a role. New York, a significantly more expensive market, ranked a close second in 2025, accounting for 6.5% of net positive migration into Charleston, just behind Baltimore’s 6.8%.
While housing costs are only one factor influencing migration decisions, the data suggests that households continue to gravitate toward markets where homeownership is comparatively more attainable than in the places they leave behind.
Typical Home Values* in Top Feeder Markets to Destination Hubs, 2025
*Typical home value based on Zillow Research’s Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) for Dec. 2024, immediately preceding the analyzed migration period (Jan.–Dec. 2025).
But as important as affordability is in explaining today’s domestic migration patterns, age appears to be an even stronger determinant of where people choose to relocate.
Among mid-sized and large metros (250K+ residents) experiencing significant population shifts – defined as gaining or losing at least 1.0% of their starting population through domestic migration over the past two years – households are increasingly moving toward older, more established communities.
The data reveals a clear negative relationship between migration performance and age differential – a metric calculated by subtracting the median age of the destination market from the weighted median age of its feeder markets. Negative values indicate movement toward older communities, while positive values indicate movement toward younger ones. In other words, the metros attracting the strongest migration inflows tend to be older than the markets sending them residents.
The data also shows a clear positive relationship between migration performance and retiree concentration. Metros with larger shares of residents aged 65 and older generally saw stronger migration gains over the past two years, while younger metros tended to attract fewer newcomers. This suggests that retiree-driven relocation has become an increasingly important driver of migration. At the same time, the influx of younger residents points to the broader appeal of these communities, which offer a mix of affordability, amenities, and lifestyle advantages.
Net Migration as Share of Starting Population, 2024–2025*
*Analysis includes metro areas with 250K+ residents and domestic migration gains or losses of at least 1.0% during the study period. Weighted Age Differential compares the destination market’s median age with the weighted median age of origin markets, with positive values indicating migration toward younger markets and negative values indicating migration toward older markets. Age data: Census ACS 2020–2024.
The pandemic-era urban exodus is giving way to a more nuanced migration landscape. Large urban markets are stabilizing, while growth is increasingly concentrated in smaller states, secondary metros, and intra-state corridors. Affordability remains a powerful pull, but retirees, lifestyle considerations, and local market dynamics are also playing an increasingly important role in where Americans choose to live.
To capitalize on these shifts in 2026, civic leaders, commercial real estate (CRE) investors, retailers, and developers should:
Across segments, retail and dining expansions converge on a common set of priorities, including identifying markets with strong demand, ensuring alignment with target audiences, and leveraging local consumer behavior to drive synergy. Using AI-powered location intelligence, we analyzed five expanding brands and segments to uncover the core principles driving successful site selection.
Nationwide visits to coffee chains are up in 2026, with established brands and newcomers alike seeing their traffic increase as consumer headwinds lead some to shift their discretionary spend towards more affordable indulgences. But past visit growth does not necessarily indicate future opportunity – it may instead signal market saturation. Relying solely on overall visit trends to guide expansion could lead chains into highly competitive markets where existing supply already meets demand.
For example, analyzing traffic trends in 10 major metro areas where coffee visits increased year-over-year (YoY) in Q1 2026 reveals significant gaps between overall traffic trends and per-location demand. In some CBSAs, overall traffic growth significantly outpaced per-location traffic trends – suggesting that supply is already meeting (or exceeding) demand and limiting room for new coffee locations despite overall category growth. But in other metro areas, where overall visit growth appears smaller, per-location traffic is actually booming – indicating that the underlying demand is resilient enough to support additional coffee concepts.
These patterns highlight the importance of looking beyond topline growth to identify where true whitespace still exists.
Effective site selection matches both regional and local demographics to a brand’s target customer, supporting performance and reinforcing positioning. But even in well-aligned metros, results depend on site-level precision – locations where the trade area visitor profile most closely reflects the brand’s core audience are best positioned to drive incremental upside.
An analysis of Alo locations in the DC area suggests that the company is adopting this strategy. Within the already high-income metro area of Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, individual Alo Yoga stores are placed in centers that draw even more affluent visitors – maximizing the revenue potential of each location.
In fact, Alo's newest stores in the metro area – One Loudoun and Bethesda Row – drive traffic from households with higher median incomes than even the established area locations. This signals a clear focus on premium retail corridors and affluent consumer segments, which reinforces the brand’s positioning while capturing higher-spending customers at the site level.
Beyond driving traffic potential and demographic alignment, site selection should also ensure that a brand’s identity and operating model are well matched to the visitation patterns of prospective locations. Barnes & Noble offers a clear example. The company’s ongoing resurgence has relied in part on repositioning itself as a local cultural and social hub, with a stronger emphasis on local curation and community-driven events.
And analyzing Barnes & Noble’s 2026 openings shows a clear tilt toward centers with a higher share of local traffic than the chain average – supporting its shift away from a purely transactional retail model toward a more community-centric experience built around local curation, events, and repeat visitation. By prioritizing locally driven centers, the company’s site selection strategy not only captures relevant traffic but also reinforces its broader repositioning as a neighborhood-oriented brand.
Effective site selection recognizes that proximity to competitors can function as a demand driver, amplifying traffic rather than diluting it.
In practice, this often takes the form of clustering – deliberately locating near similar or complementary concepts to capture shared demand. Shake Shack provides a clear example. Analyzing the chain's store fleet shows that many locations sit near other QSR and fast-casual concepts, creating opportunities to capture dining-based traffic. At the same time, strong cross-visitation patterns indicate that these co-located brands share a common customer base, positioning the brand closer to consumers who are already likely to visit. And, at least for Shake Shack, this strategy appears to be working – traffic to the chain increased 19.9% YoY in Q1 2026.
Incorporating trade area analysis into site selection can also help determine whether a new location will generate new traffic or risk cannibalizing existing demand. Aldi, a rapidly expanding grocery chain, offers a relevant example.
The company opened a fourth Las Vegas store on S Decatur Blvd in October 2025, positioned between existing locations on W Craig Rd and S Rainbow Blvd, approximately eight miles from each. And analyzing the core trade area of each of the four Las Vegas locations indicated limited visitor cannibalization over the last six months, despite the stores’ close proximity. Only 6.2% and 7.6% of the S Decatur Blvd store’s trade area overlapped with the W Craig Rd and S Rainbow Blvd stores’ trade areas, respectively.
These findings show that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to store spacing – it varies by brand, category, and market. Analyzing a company’s existing store network alongside competitor density and overall demand can help determine how closely locations can be placed without hurting performance. In many cases – especially in high-frequency categories like grocery – markets can support stores that are closer together than expected.
Physical retail is increasingly defined by a small group of dominant players – Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, and Dollar General – that span grocery, essentials, and discretionary categories at a scale no other retailers can match. These chains serve as bellwethers of consumer behavior, revealing where Americans are spending, how often they shop, and what drives their decisions. And understanding their visitation patterns sheds light on the key dynamics shaping both their performance and the broader blueprint for retail success in 2026.
Retail giants Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, and Dollar General continue to capture a growing share of brick-and-mortar visits nationwide.
• The share of physical retail traffic captured by these giants rose from 16.8% in 2019 to 17.5% in Q1 2026, signaling continued sector consolidation.
• The scale advantage enjoyed by retail giants is increasingly self-reinforcing: Larger players benefit from superior data, stronger vendor leverage, and operational efficiencies that in turn further widen the gap.
• As these advantages compound, direct competition becomes less viable. Instead, smaller retailers should focus on owning specific trip missions – such as convenience, fill-in, or discovery – where format, assortment curation, and in-store experience can more directly shape consumer choice.
• For CRE operators, the growing dominance of these retail giants increases reliance on top-tier anchors, potentially driving performance gaps between centers with strong national tenants and those without.
• For CPG companies, the consolidation in the offline retail space heightens channel concentration, making success with a handful of large retailers critical while increasing those retailers’ negotiating leverage.
Traffic trends across the four giants reveal meaningful divergence in performance.
• Costco and Dollar General are driving the strongest visit growth, supported by both substantial fleet expansions and rising visits per location. In 2025, visits per store exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 18.1% for Costco and 10.2% for Dollar General, with both brands also seeing steady increases in their share of total brick-and-mortar retail chain visits.
• Walmart remains the largest player by far, accounting for 9.7% of traffic to major brick-and-mortar chains in 2025. And though the behemoth’s share of visits declined slightly in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, it has held steady over the past three years.
• Target’s visit share has remained relatively flat over the past three years, reflecting stalled momentum. Still, early 2026 trends point to emerging signs of recovery – with Q1 visits up 8.3% compared to Q1 2019.
• Value retail is winning, but in more specialized forms: Dollar General (extreme value + convenience) and Costco (bulk value + loyalty) are driving the strongest traffic growth and rising visits per store, while Walmart’s broad “everyday value” remains steady with slower growth. Target, for its part, is lagging – likely a reflection of the broader bifurcation in retail which has left middle-market players caught between consumers trading down to value and those trading up to quality.
• For retailers and CPG companies, the broader lesson is that value perception is becoming more nuanced. It’s no longer just about offering low prices at scale, but about how value is delivered – whether through small packs vs. bulk, or quick trips vs. stock-up missions. Success increasingly depends on prioritizing these distinct value formats and investing in channels where store-level productivity is improving.
• For CRE operators, the outperformance of retailers with clearly defined value propositions underscores the importance of mission-driven tenant mix. As shoppers visit with increasingly specific missions in mind, retailers that cater to those missions are outperforming. Tenant strategies should reflect this shift, ensuring complementary offerings that reinforce a cohesive shopping mission.
Walmart remains the dominant brick-and-mortar retailer nationwide and across all fifty states. Still, the data suggests there is room for multiple runners-up to succeed across geographies and customer segments.
• Dollar General, Target, and Costco each attract distinct audience segments. Dollar General attracts a disproportionately high share of the “Mature and Retired Living” segment, while Costco leads among family households, with Target also over-indexing with this group. Among younger “Contemporary Households,” meanwhile – a segment encompassing singles, married couples without children, and non-family households – Target commands the highest share, slightly over-indexing compared to the nationwide baseline.
• Regional strengths vary significantly, with Dollar General concentrated in the South, Costco dominant in the Northwest, and Target showing more dispersed areas of strength.
• Despite similar overall visit share, Dollar General leads in more states (26 vs. 17 for Target), reflecting broader geographic dominance.
• For retailers, the data suggests that growth opportunities are increasingly shaped by localized demographic and geographic dynamics – meaning that targeted, market-specific strategies may be more effective than uniform national approaches.
• Younger “Contemporary Households” remain less locked-in than older demographics, representing a key battleground for future growth.
• For CPG companies, this data highlights that channel strategy is really about building the right mix of retailers, since even large national players reach different types of consumers.
• CRE operators should ask "which anchor is right for this trade area" rather than "which anchor is strongest," as mismatched tenants can underperform even if they’re nationally dominant.
After remaining essentially flat in 2025, average visits per location to Walmart grew 3.5% YoY in Q1 2026. And the retailer’s solid Q1 performance across the U.S. underscores its unique ability to resonate across income levels, geographies, and shopping missions.
• Walmart posted year-over-year visit growth across nearly all U.S. markets in Q1 2026, reinforcing its role as a universally relevant retailer.
• The giant’s comparative softness in small parts of the Northeast suggests an opportunity to double down on region-specific assortments, urban-friendly formats, or partnerships to better match local shopping behaviors.
• Walmart’s broad-based growth shows that even as consumers are increasingly willing to visit multiple retailers to get what they want, its Superstore model has solidified its role as a primary stop on the American shopping journey – making it a uniquely reliable anchor for CRE operators.
• For smaller retailers, this underscores the opportunity to win the “second stop” – capturing trips through curated assortments and more tailored in-store experiences that Walmart’s scale is less optimized to deliver.
• For CPG companies, Walmart stands out as a highly attractive partner for broad, efficient reach, given its consistent traffic across markets.
Target’s recent performance suggests early momentum in reversing prior softness.
• Q1 2026 visits to Target rose 5.1% year over year, marking the chain’s first positive visit growth in more than a year, and suggesting that the chain’s new turnaround strategy may be bearing fruit.
• Gains were driven primarily by visits lasting 30 to 45 minutes, which accounted for 19.6% of overall visits to Target in Q1 2026 – pointing to stronger in-store engagement rather than quick, mission-driven stops.
• Target’s return to traffic growth – driven by increases in mid-length trips – signals a sustainable recovery on the horizon, strengthening its reliability as a traffic-driving tenant for CRE operators.
• Target's turnaround shows retailers how increasing shopper engagement can generate growth by converting quick trips into higher-value, multi-category experiences.
• For CPG companies, the rise in mid-length visits indicates a more receptive in-store environment for discovery and trade-up, making Target an increasingly attractive channel for innovation, merchandising, and premium offerings.
Dollar General is becoming embedded in consumers’ daily routines.
• Visitor frequency to Dollar General is on the rise. In Q1 2026, nearly a quarter of visitors frequented the chain at least four times in an average month, up from 21.2% in Q1 2022.
• Dollar General is becoming increasingly local in nature: As its footprint expands, more visits originate nearby, with 28.0% coming from within one mile – reinforcing its role as a neighborhood store of choice.
• Dollar General’s visitation patterns point to a growing ownership of the convenience mission. Its expanding store density is creating a self-reinforcing network effect, where proximity fuels frequency, and frequency strengthens long-term defensibility.
• For retailers, Dollar General’s rising share of nearby and high-frequency visits shows that proximity can drive habit, making convenience a powerful lever for building repeat behavior.
• For CRE operators, the data highlights the strength of hyper-local, necessity-driven traffic, positioning Dollar General as a stable tenant that anchors consistent, repeat visitation.
• For CPG professionals, the increase in frequent trips signals a high-velocity purchase environment, favoring smaller pack sizes and products that align with regular replenishment cycles.
Costco continues to grow and diversify its audience despite higher membership fees and stricter food court access policies, highlighting the strength of its value proposition and loyalty model.
• In September 2024, Costco raised its membership fees for the first time in seven years – and more recently tightened enforcement of member-only access to its food courts. Despite these changes, visitation has remained strong, highlighting the company’s pricing power and deep customer loyalty.
• At the same time, Costco’s shopper base is broadening, with median household income trending slightly downward while remaining relatively affluent.
• Offering strong value to a relatively affluent consumer base can be a winning formula in 2026. Retailers that combine quality, trust, and perceived savings – rather than competing solely on low prices – are well positioned to drive both loyalty and sustained traffic growth.
• For CRE operators, Costco’s sustained traffic growth and broadening shopper base reinforce its value as a standalone, high-demand traffic magnet that can anchor entire trade areas and drive surrounding retail development.
• For CPG companies, the combination of high traffic and declining median HHI signals that Costco is evolving into a scaled channel reaching beyond affluent shoppers, requiring more diversified assortment and pricing strategies.
