Dive Brief:
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January saw an overall 1.3% decrease in sales from last year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture, and other sales, according to Euclid’s U.S. Retail Benchmark report. Broken out, apparel sales saw a 1.7% year-over-year increase, while general merchandise sales were flat.
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Meanwhile, RetailNext found a 7.7% decrease in sales and traffic at physical stores in January, with average transaction value and sales per shopper both falling 0.1% and conversion increasing 0.2%. RetailNext found the month began with sluggish sales (an 11.4% drop in week one) with a bit of a rebound in the last week.
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Both reports found Northeast retailers hit hard by severe weather in January plus e-commerce leading to falling traffic in physical stores overall, and RetailNext shows that retail performance varied greatly across regions.
Dive Insight:
Overall, these reports show e-commerce benefiting from poor weather that kept people away from stores, especially in the Northeast, which suffered severe storms. But a sort of pall is hanging over retailers from the holidays. Perhaps people are tackling the debt they incurred during the season— Creditcards.com found that more than a third of Americans have taken on new debt thanks to their holiday spending this past year.