The Coresight Research US 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 December, according to RetailNext, falling 5.2% year over year in December, although slower than November’s 6.1% decline.
• The conversion rate (sales transactions as a percentage of traffic) advanced 0.9 percentage points in December, slightly slower than the 1.2-percentage-point increase in November.
• Transaction volume slid 2.7% in December following a 1.3% decline in November.
• The product return rate further declined by 0.5 percentage points in December after posting a 0.1-percentage-point decrease in November.

Shopper yield (sales divided by traffic) continued an 11-month growth streak, while ATV (sales divided by transactions) grew after declining for three consecutive months.

• ATV increased 1.0% in December versus November’s 0.5% decline.
• Shopper yield increased 4.3% year over year in December, compared to 5.4% growth in November.

[caption id="attachment_102300" align="aligncenter" width="700"] ATV = average transaction value, % return = percentage of goods returned to stores
Source: RetailNext [/caption]   Data for December shows performance varied over the five weeks, which includes four days of January:

• The fifth week performed the best for traffic, but the fourth week saw the best of sales and ATV.
• The third week saw the largest traffic decline, but the highest increase in conversion rates.
• December 21 performed the best for sales, traffic and transactions, while December 6 performed best for conversion rate and shopping yield.
• Traffic was lowest on December 3, while sales were lowest on January 2. December 26 performed the worst for ATV and shopper yield.

The Midwest, South and Northeast reported sales declines while the West reported increases. All regions posted traffic declines in December. The Midwest saw the largest traffic decline at 6.2%, as the region experienced its heaviest snowfall since 2016. The Northeast registered the largest year-over-year declines in sales at 4.9%. With warmer and wetter conditions, the West posted a sales increase of 1.4% and the lowest decline in traffic at 1.6%.