Our US Monthly Retail Traffic and In-Store Metrics Report reviews year-over-year changes in selected store-based metrics, including sales, traffic and conversion rates.

• US store-based traffic continued to fall in April, according to RetailNext. Retail traffic recorded a 5.0% year-over-year decline in April, slower than the 7.9% and 7.3% declines in March and February, respectively.
• The conversion rate (sales transactions as a percentage of traffic) advanced 0.1 percentage points in April after declining 0.4 percentage points in March.
• The rate of product returns was flat in April, after declining 0.3 percentage points in March.

ATV and shopper yield showed year-over-year gains for the fourth consecutive month. ATV continued an eight-month growth streak.

• Average transaction value (ATV; sales divided by transactions) fell 3.2% versus 3.3% growth reported in March.
• Shopper yield (sales divided by traffic) grew 3.0% year over year in April following a 2.7% and 0.5% increase in February and March, respectively.

[caption id="attachment_88893" align="aligncenter" width="720"] ATV = average transaction value, % Return = percentage of goods returned to stores
Source: RetailNext [/caption]   Data for April showed that performance varied over the course of the four weeks:

• The second week of April leading up to April 21 , Easter Sunday, performed best for sales, traffic, ATV and transactions compared to the same week last year.
• April 13 was best for sales and ATV while April 20 was best for traffic.
• May 2 was best for conversion and shopper yield. Traffic and sales performed best in the second week of the month with an increase of 3.8% and 2.5%, respectively, due to Easter shoppers.
• The last week of April had the lowest traffic, a major decrease of 9.4%. Sales and transactions also saw decreases of 8.0% and 6.6%, respectively.

All regions posted sales and traffic declines in April. The northeast part of the US registered the largest year-over-year decline in traffic at 7.3% due to April showers, with northeast experiencing the wettest spring weather since 1983. The midwest experienced the lowest decline in traffic, at 0.2%. The northeast also recorded the largest year-over-year in-store sales decline, down 3.9%, while the midwest reported the smallest decline, down 1.1%, even though the midwest had cooler conditions and more snowfall than last year.