Early Easter, Cold and Snow Hurt April Retail Sales, Report Says

Cold weather, snow storms and an early Easter Holiday did their part to fuel a drop in retail traffic in April (7.8%) that in turn decreased sales by 5.6% for the same period year over year.  The findings were part of the RetailNext Retail Performance Pulse report, a performance review for brick and mortar retail stores in the U.S.

RetailNext Retail Performance Pulse April 2018

Declines in Traffic and Sales

The declines in traffic and sales were partially offset by a 0.9 point upward swing in conversion, measured by calculating sales transactions as a percentage of traffic. This metric has been riding a positive trend for six of the last seven months.

The current year over year report compared the period of April 9 through May 6, 2017 to April 8 through May 5, 2018. Seven million shipping trips in the continental United States were analyzed.

Best Numbers

April experienced its best numbers during the third week of the month. Three important metrics — conversion, net sales and average transaction value — were up for that week. April saw it best sales day Saturday, April 28 while reached its highest point Thursday, April 26.

Traffic hit its lowest point on Monday, April 16.

Regionally

Regionally, the Northeast saw sales drop 4.1% year over year and traffic decrease 9.3%. The Midwest experienced a sales decrease of 8.2%, the worst for any region. The West saw sales and traffic dip at 6.4% and 7.7% respectively.

The South didn’t do any better with the second-highest sales decline (6.9%) and traffic numbers that dropped by 5.6%.

RetailNext uses SaaS software to collect and analyze shopper’s data. They have their headquarters in San Jose, CA. Over 300 retailers in 60 different countries have adopted their analytics platform.

Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Early Easter, Cold and Snow Hurt April Retail Sales, Report Says" was first published on Small Business Trends