Dive Brief:
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According to foot traffic analytics platform Placer.ai, Dick's Sporting Goods experienced a 4.5% bump in traffic during the first 10 months of 2019 compared to the same timeframe in 2018, and an 11.1% increase from 2017.
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Best Buy saw a 7.7% increase in visitors in August 2019 above the baseline for the period (July 2017 to October 2019), a 4.3% bump in August 2017 and a 0.3% decrease in 2018, per Placer.ai's report. The analytics firm notes that Best Buy's in-store traffic will need to balance out in the future since the retailer is closing stores currently.
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Old Navy had a slight uptick in foot traffic, of 1.5%, compared to its third-quarter in 2018, the report found. However, that increase was contrasted by steep visit declines in September and October.
Dive Insight:
Placer.ai's findings come after Best Buy announced its revenue goal of $50 billion by 2025. In November, the retailer reported a quarterly revenue increase of 1.8% to $9.76 billion from $9.59 billion in the year-ago period. The Placer.ai report noted that Best Buy's plan to close numerous brick-and-mortar stores and thus optimize its physical locations "makes tremendous sense considering the omnichannel focus the brand is taking."
Meanwhile, Gap Inc. executives in November maintained that Old Navy is parting ways with its parent company. In the third quarter, Gap Inc. reported a 2% net sales decline to $4 billion. In addition, S&P downgraded Gap Inc.'s issuer credit rating and issue-level rating from "BB+" to "BB" in late November. Per the Placer.ai report, Old Navy's visitorship was 19.4% and 15% below the baseline in September and October 2019 respectively, more significant than the 10.2% and 12.3% declines in the same months of 2018.
"This places a huge emphasis on the ability to convert visitors into buyers and may help identify where the issues may lie with Old Navy," the report noted. "The brand still clearly possesses the cache necessary to drive visits in the Off-Price sector, but increased competition may demand the brand upgrade the product on offer, or the in-store experience."
Dick's Sporting Goods' bump in traffic came as the retailer reported a net income of $57.6 million for Q3, an increase from its 2018 third-quarter net income of $37.8 million. The Placer.ai report found that Dick's Sporting Goods' traffic has increased year over year each month from May through October 2019. In August 2019, visits hit a peak, rising 52.7% above the retailer's baseline.