By Alicia Fiorletta, Senior Editor
The summer may be prime time for consumers to leave town and hit the beach, but that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped spending.
Although shopper traffic declined 9% year over year, overall retail sales for June 2014 actually increased, according to research from Euclid.
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Clothing and apparel saws the largest jump in year-over-year sales (4%), while general merchandise saw 1% growth over the same period of time.
For its monthly retail benchmark report, Euclid analyzed shopper activity and behavior during the entire month of June.
So what caused the significant drop in traffic?
Euclid pointed to vacations, holidays and the World Cup as the primary culprits. After all, who wants to shop when their friends and colleagues are gathering at the local pub after work and on the weekends to watch a soccer game? These same factors also caused the slight decrease in repeat visits during June.
It will be interesting to see how store traffic changed in July, as retailers were not only facing the World Cup and vacation schedules, but also the July 4th holiday, which is a paramount time for consumers to disconnect.
But at the same time, many retailers went gangbusters during the long weekend, holding special sales and events to drive foot traffic.
How do you think retailers will stack up in July? Do you think consumers were eager to hit the stores?
Click here to access more of the findings.
