Measuring Consumer Behaviour Shifts, Step by Step
Foot traffic has long been used to help businesses better understand the behaviours of their customers. New and enhanced data products provide even greater insight into the demographic composition of visits. We have looked at three key areas – food, travel and shopping centre preferences – to provide an overview of what the data are telling us.
1. Food
According to the data, grocery store foot traffic was relatively consistent throughout the early summer of 2022 with a sharper increase in visits starting the first week of August 2022 onwards, shortly after a rise in interest rates in late July. Compared to the first week of August, grocery visits were particularly high during the weeks of September 26th (14.4% increase in foot traffic compared to the week of August 1st), October 10th (21.7% increase in foot traffic) and November 14th (peaked at 34.2%). We then looked at traffic patterns across three food categories: grocery; quick-serve restaurants; and sit-down dining establishments.
When comparing visits from January to November 2022 across these categories, we can see that grocery foot traffic was consistently higher than either restaurant type – though grocery and QSRs do follow similar trends in visits.
2. Travel
Travel is another area that has been closely monitored as COVID-19 travel restrictions were gradually lifted and people became more comfortable with the idea of taking trips again.
As shown above, airport year-over-year patterns tended to be similar with higher volumes observed in 2022. Overall, foot traffic volume in airports grew from late January 2022 onwards.
3. Shopping centre preferences
Demographic and customer profiling data provide interesting insights on shopping centre preferences in Canada.
Using FootFall’s enhanced data dashboard view featuring PRIZM® segmentation, we found that mixed-use retail locations were more likely to draw younger, urban visitors.
The dashboard above shows that retail mixed-used developments typically attract a younger demographic that is culturally diverse. Visits originate from neighbourhoods with younger, single-person households with incomes above the Canadian average.
Suburban families were more likely to choose power centres for one-stop shopping.
Foot traffic data on power centres show this type of retail category tends to attract visits from neighbourhoods with an older family demographic, a household size of at least four individuals and an average household income of $127K. This group prefers shopping at multiple stores in one place, where there’s something for everyone in the family.
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