In a world where inflation hits hard, some shoppers have taken on somewhat of survivalist mode. To get in and get out.
Cue in “mission-driven shopping,” a savvy way consumers are making fewer, but more efficient trips to the store, according to a new report from foot traffic analytics firm Placer.ai.
When customers visit retail giants like Costco, Target and Walmart, the time they spend inside each stores varies significantly. The variation, which the firm captured by a metric known as “dwell time,” measures how long shoppers linger in a store.
To put it into perspective, Placer.ai found that a trip to Target and Walmart is increasingly getting faster, and has been over the last four years. Meanwhile, a Costco run has steadily gotten longer over that time span.
Despite the ebb and flow of mission-driven shopping, Costco’s dwell times have remained steady and that could in part be due to the warehouse retailer’s bulk offerings, endless free samples, and its cheap food court items (like its $1.50 hot dog combo).
Even as retail’s landscape continues to evolve an an inflationary environment, one thing remains clear: Consumers are shopping at these retail giants. Whether they linger at one over another may be depend on what discounts, deals or bargains that retailer is hawking.
Notably, Walmart is winning with consumers of all income cohorts (though wealthier shoppers are giving it a big boost). Meanwhile, Target’s trying to recapture some of that market share with price cuts and weekly discount events. Costco’s taking a Netflix-like approach to its memberships and cracking down on those that are sharing the loyalty cards (that hasn’t kept it from reporting strong sales).
Let’s take a look at the shopping trip “dwell” times at Target, Walmart, and Costco between the first half of 2021-2024.
