How Covid-19 has Impacted Retail Foot Traffic in my Neighborhood

I wanted to see how retailers in my neighborhood were affected by Coronavirus. If you use Google maps, you may be aware that it tracks your location almost all the time (you can enable/disable this setting if you want). Using the data collected by Google from my cell phone, I was able to see the top-5 retail sites I visited in my Google Maps Timeline. I then used a data service we subscribe to at Equity Retail Brokers to see the year-over-year change in visitor counts for the stores. I used the 30-day period from March 15 to April 15 for the comparison. The data service we subscribe to provides estimated foot traffic for most retail stores and is broken down by day/week/month to give an idea of how well a particular store does. This tool is very helpful when specific sales data store for a location is unknown or we need to better understand the vibrancy of a shopping center.

The top-5 most visited retail locations according to my Google timeline were:

1. Home Depot, Plymouth Meeting PA

2. Whole Foods, Plymouth Meeting PA

3. ShopRite, Ridge Ave. Philadelphia, PA

4. Wawa Ridge Ave. Philadelphia, PA

5. Target, Ridge Ave. Philadelphia, PA

Home Depot

First is Home Depot, 200 Alan Wood Road, Plymouth Meeting (Conshohocken, PA). Estimated Visits were down from 69k to 61k. I had heard reports that Home Depot was experiencing an uptick in customers visiting the store, to purchase materials for DIY projects during the quarantine. It is unlikely that the uptick from DIY’ers would offset the number of construction workers not being able to work at this time.

Whole Foods

Next up is Whole Foods on Germantown Pike in Plymouth Meeting. We all know that foot traffic has declined significantly. Although grocery stores are deemed essential and remain open, this location had a significant year-over-year decline, dropping from 118k visits to 48k visits for the 30-day period. An almost 60% decrease.

Although considered essential, grocery store foot traffic at this Whole Foods is down significantly.

ShopRite (Vs. Whole Foods)

My neighborhood grocery store, located at 6901 Ridge Ave. experienced a 4.08% decrease in foot traffic. This is significantly better than Whole Foods. A few reasons for why this might be. First, Whole Foods gets a significant amount of foot traffic from their lunch buffet customers from the nearby office buildings. Most of those workers are now telecommuting. Also, it could be that many of the office workers go grocery shopping at the Whole Foods to pick up items on their way home from work…no work, no grocery shopping. Another reason is there might be a shift towards frugality, and Whole Foods is not necessarily known for their amazing discounts. Lastly, the neighborhood ShopRite may have been the go-to spot for household staple goods. Is there a need for organic, free-range toilet paper during a pandemic?

Is ShopRite on Ridge Ave. a true ”neighborhood grocer”? I would think so.

Wawa

The Wawa in my neighborhood has seen a pretty big drop as well. Down 64.27% Obviously the need for fuel has decreased with the decrease in miles driven during quarantine. Many of the vehicles parked in my neighborhood have not been touched or moved in weeks now. Also, Wawa has banned self-serve food and beverages at some locations.

Target

My 5th most visited retailer was Target. This is actually a smaller format “Target Express” location. The store is basically a scaled down version of a typical Target with mostly self-serve checkouts and limited staff. Generally speaking, my observation is that the foot traffic in the store is moderate and is never too crowded. The foot traffic numbers are about 1/3 of the ShopRite that is right down the street. This store experienced a 21.73% decrease in visitor traffic.

Target has positioned it Express locations as neighborhood stores. Compared to ShopRite, it does not have the same “stickiness factor” for a neighborhood grocer.

All 5 locations with total visits for the 30-day period March 15 to April 15.

When we return back to normal, or “new normal” is anybody’s guess. Using this data can be helpful in determining how active retailers are at this time. What this does not show is the number of behind-the-scenes deliveries, shipments, and Instacart/online orders/etc. However, it can help determine the potential viability of a location and shopping center moving forward.