Retail Stores End Year With Strong Holiday Performance

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RetailNext Inc., the worldwide expert and market leader in retail analytics for optimizing shopper experiences at brick-and-mortar retail stores, today released its monthly Retail Performance Pulse, reporting stronger store performance in December than preceding months in every key performance metric. In December, sales decreased 0.4 percent on a decline in store traffic of 5.8 percent, resulting in a combined November and December holiday shopping season performance of a 2 percent decrease in sales on a 6.4 percent drop in traffic.

"Brick-and-mortar retail's holiday results do not come as a tremendous surprise as physical retail began to show signs of improvement early in November," said Shelley E. Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext. "The real news and somewhat of a surprise was the minimal sales drop in the month of December, well improved from a trend this year of around negative 7 percent. Retailers have worked very hard the past year to make noticeable changes in the store environment, including the addition enabling technologies, solutions to shopper pain points, and more knowledgeable sales associates on the front lines, and it's beginning to pay off."

The strongest weeks of December for brick-and-mortar retailers were the week of Christmas and the week after, where strong conversion and Sales per Shopper (SpS) resulted in sales increases of 10.8 percent and 6.7 percent respectfully. It was the second consecutive year of strong performance at the end of the calendar year, and reflected the changing trends in shopper journeys as shoppers seamlessly navigate across digital and physical channels.

"The holiday season illustrated how retailers are redefining the role of stores," added Bridget Johns, RetailNext's head of marketing and customer experience. "Successful retailers are recognizing the strengths of online channels during the early- and mid-holiday season, and in turn focusing physical channels on delivering shopping experiences that blend with customers' preferred shopping patterns. One shining example is the increased implementation of technology solutions to free sales associates from the burden of non-value added tasks not directly related to sales or service, delivering friction-free shopping journeys for customers, and leading to increased store performance."

The complete Retail Performance Pulse detailing store performance for December and Holiday 2015 can be downloaded in its entirety at http://retailnext.net/benchmark/retail-performance-pulse-january-2016/.

About RetailNext
The first technology platform to bring e-commerce style shopper analytics to brick-and-mortar stores and malls, RetailNext is the pioneer focusing entirely on optimizing the in-store shopping experience. Through its hardware-agnostic SaaS platform, RetailNext enables retailers to collect and correlate data from the broadest available set of data sources, and delivers retailers, malls and brands deep, actionable insights into shoppers and their behaviors as they navigate through their multichannel shopping journeys. More than 250 retailers and brands worldwide have adopted RetailNext solutions to glean the insights necessary to improve customer experience, increase same-store sales, reduce theft and eliminate unnecessary costs.

RetailNext measures the behavior of more than three billion shoppers per year by collecting data from over a hundred thousand sensors in retail stores and analyzing trillions of data points annually. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., RetailNext is a growing global brand operating in over 50 countries. For more information, please visit www.retailnext.net.

RetailNext Inc. and RetailNext are trademarks of RetailNext Inc. in the United States.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140113/CL44102LOGO

SOURCE RetailNext Inc.

Related Links

http://www.retailnext.net