ShopperTrak Alone in Predicting Positive Holiday Sales Accurately.
18/01/2010 11:17:09 AM
By Bill Martin
Co founder of ShopperTrak
In late October I spent a full day in New York going from one media outlet to the next announcing ShopperTrak’s forecast for the holiday shopping season (November / December). Following a dismal retail year where our data showed consistent sales and traffic declines, we seemed to be raising some eyebrows with our prediction of a 1.6 percent retail sales gain with a 4.2 percent traffic decline for the holiday season – both increases from the 2009 trend. Time after time, I was asked by reporters, producers, show hosts, etc. on that day to explain how we can possibly expect to see positive momentum in retail following the worst holiday season in over 40 years (2008) and the economic downturn in ’09 – and my answer was simple, our data showed people wanted to spend…and we were right.
For the past two years, consumers have been tightening their budgets creating pent up demand for a spending event like the holidays. I explained that in the few months leading into the holiday season, we saw continued improvement in both sales and traffic levels, and we believed this would continue throughout November and December. Needless to say it did as the final holiday numbers showed a 1.7 percent retail sales rise, with a better than expected 2.9 percent foot traffic decline.
So why bring this up? To simply point out a fact we’ve known since we started providing retail data to the industry – our forecasts and analysis are a proven source of highly accurate information, despite quite often varying from the “popular” opinion.
Let me also quickly state that our data is not derived from a survey and is unbiased and reported by ShopperTrak every week throughout the year whether performance is up or down. We receive information from our retail clients at thousands of locations throughout the country, then use a proprietary formula to estimate numbers against the U.S. Commerce Department’s Monthly GAFO data, representing sales at the following types of retail businesses:
- General merchandise stores
- Clothing and clothing accessories stores
- Furniture and home furnishings stores
- Electronics and appliance stores
- Sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores
- Office supplies, stationery, and gift stores
While performance was relatively strong this holiday season, retailers will have their work cut out for them throughout 2010 to maintain profitability in a still challenging retail environment. We’ll issue our Q1 forecast with further analysis later next week.
