Shopper activity increased last month with the Easter holiday and students on spring break.

Retailers pushed to extend the high level of holiday shopping and foot traffic by promoting post-holiday specials and markdowns on seasonal merchandise in January. However, as expected, shopper traffic continued to drop off significantly after the end of the holiday season.

Holiday shopping reached its seasonal peak in December, driving a 36.6 percent retail foot traffic increase over November.

Columbus Day and Halloween have historically brought more shoppers to stores in October. This year, however, the month saw a 4.1% decrease in retail foot traffic compared with September.

Back-to-school shopping, the second-largest shopping season in the United States, helped make this August a strong month for retailers. Shoppers took advantage of back-to-school promotions to outfit students for the new school year. ShopperTrak, the world’s largest counter and analyzer of retail foot traffic, found that August’s retail foot traffic increased 6.3% compared with the previous month and increased 12.3% compared with the same month last year.

Summer retail is heating up. June brought high temperatures and a steady stream of shoppers to stores across the nation. Retail foot traffic in June increased 5.2% compared with the previous month and 7% over the same period last year.
Retailers saw a peak mid-month as shoppers splurged on Dad for Father’s Day on June 17. Retailers also benefited from June containing the last Friday and Saturday leading up to the week of July 4. Shoppers capitalized on the mid-week holiday by starting vacations early or browsing for celebratory items on those days.

Warm weather and shifting holidays in March caused retail foot traffic to dip in April. Retail foot traffic in April was 7.6% lower from March, and 2.7% lower on a year-over-year basis. The slow April is the first in the past 3 months to experience a decline in year-over-year and month-over-month retail foot traffic.