Report: Pandemic tough on non-grocers

Domo, an American Fork-based cloud business intelligence platform, has released findings from a new report that provides insight into the impact of the pandemic for non-grocery retailers in 2020. The analysis combines GPS mobility date from 850 non-grocery retailers with more than 210,000 U.S. retail locations to analyze foot traffic, as well as data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker.

“Overall average daily non-grocery retail foot traffic declined 14.1 percent across the year and 22.5 percent during the holiday season. Amidst these declines, there were clear winners and losers across the various retail segments,” said John Mellor, chief strategy officer for Domo. “Our latest report outlines key differentiators from the retailers that weathered the storm and those still trying to right the ships.”

Key report findings include:

• January and February 2020 roared out of the gates with 30.8 percent and 14.8 percent year-over-year foot traffic growth, respectively but by March and April, foot traffic plummeted. During the week of March 22, states with stringent COVID-19 lockdown restrictions saw a 42.3 percent decline and states with less stringent restrictions also saw a 25.9 percent decline, indicating that fear may have played a larger impact than regulations early on.

• Based on the analysis, retailers that had buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) experiences were able to draw in more foot traffic with declines of only 1.2 percent during the year versus the 23.3 percent decline that retailers without BOPIS saw.

• The year’s low point for foot traffic losses occurred on April 17. On this date, small retailers saw a staggering 83.2 percent drop in foot traffic and were only able to bounce back to a 51.3 percent decline over the summer. During the holiday season, small retailers were battered with 53 percent foot traffic declines while very large retailers were down only 11.7 percent.

• The top sector with foot traffic gains during the holiday and across the year was home and garden with 7.7 percent greater foot traffic in 2020 than in 2019.

• Retailers located in the mall suffered through a 38.8 percent decline in foot traffic versus the 9.4 percent declines of retailers not located in a mall.

“Trends from 2020 foretell the likely volatile nature of the future lockdown economy,” Mellor continued. “As the data shows, it’s clear that digital innovation was a critical component to retail survival through 2020 and makes clear that the future will belong to those retailers that can adapt quickly.”