With summer blockbusters attracting moviegoers back to the box office, consumer transaction data reveals that U.S. sales for AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE: AMC) in June 2022 tripled compared to the same month last year. Our analysis further shows that the movie theater chain’s sales and average monthly sales per customer are higher than they were prior to the pandemic.
As inflation spiked in the first half of 2022, grocery shoppers nationwide felt the pinch at the checkout. We conducted a regional analysis of grocery foot traffic data to examine the effect inflation is having in various markets and recapped Q2 2022 visit data for the category as a whole to offer a forecast for the coming months. Inflation remains at the forefront of retail news, with the consumer price index (CPI) jumping 9.1% in June – representing the highest level in almost 40 years.
McDonald's leads all Food & Drink apps in new installs for the first half of the year by a healthy margin, beating out its top contender in Uber Eats by 70%. Looking back at the full year 2021 app download leaders, it was also McDonald's which led the pack. In addition to the Food & Drink category leaders, we've also posted the overall download leaders for H1 2022.
Our last check-in with Kohl’s in January analyzed the likelihood of continued recovery for the chain’s in-store visits. As the Back-to-School season ramps up, we thought it a good time to revisit the brand’s foot traffic and look at what steps Kohl’s is taking to maintain its position as a major player in the department store space. Kohl’s potential for a comeback is fueled by the brand’s strong position in the department store space.
Although temperatures have been rising, the housing market has been cooling. In today’s Insight Flash, we focus on how to use our CE Web webscrape dataset to catch the inflection points of when the downturn started and when it might reverse, looking at leading indicators of sales and changes in ASP at the state level. CE Web captures listings on the Opendoor and Offerpad websites, with the removal of a listing usually a leading indicator of a pending sale.
Earnest Research transaction data captures consumer credit and debit card activity across thousands of companies and dozens of categories. As a result the data paints a picture of total consumer spending on most goods and services. See methodology note at the end for wallet share calculation explanation. Consumers spent over 6% of their total monthly wallet at Big Box retailers such as Walmart and Target in June 2022, followed by Supermarkets (Kroger, HEB, Publix, etc.), Online Marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, etc), and Gas Stations.
According to recent reports, Starbucks is looking to sell its UK business. Although sales have recovered somewhat with offices reopening, does lower loyalty in the UK versus the US pose a problem? In today’s Insight Flash, we compare trends in the US versus UK, loyalty metrics, and cross-shop to dig into the company’s performance across geographies. Looking at spend versus pre-pandemic levels, Starbucks UK growth is very similar to US growth.
Historically, gas demand has been pretty predictable for any given time of the year, so the supply has been what mostly determined the pricing we see in the pumps. With the advent of remote working and as a result the ability to commute less, however, Americans have at least one lever to reduce the amount of gas they purchase. The other major aspect of the demand of course being leisure travel.
In this Placer Bytes, we take a look at the offline performance of two restaurant leaders, McDonald’s and Chipotle, to see how they’ve fared in Q2 2022. McDonald’s has long been an industry leader, with over $23 billion in sales in 2021. The fast food giant has the most locations of any restaurant in the country after Starbucks and Subway, even though it has been shrinking its store fleet in recent years. But despite its smaller physical footprint, the QSR leader has seen its year-over-year (YoY) and year-over-three-year (Yo3Y) visit numbers grow in recent months while outpacing foot traffic trends to the wider QSR category.
When considering a job offer, applicants negotiate perks, work hours, start date, health or retirement benefits. Perhaps most importantly, there is the common practice of negotiating a higher salary. But how much room do people really have when negotiating their salary? Can they get 5% above the offer? Or even 50% more? To explore this question, we examine the differences between offered salaries (proxied by the salaries announced on job postings) and the actual salaries that employees receive (salaries that employees report on job review websites during or after employment).
Last year’s Back-to-School season coincided with the wider post-vaccination brick-and-mortar reopening and the timing drove exceptionally high foot traffic as consumers flocked to their favorite stores to spend their savings from the previous year. This year, the retail landscape looks quite different, with shoppers looking to stretch their budgets and avoid unnecessary expenses in the face of rising inflation. Still, students need books, school supplies, and dorm decor and kids need new clothes as they grow. We dove into the data to find out which brands are particularly well positioned to benefit from this year’s Back-to-School season.
Total construction starts fell 5% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $932.3 billion, according to Dodge Construction Network. Nonresidential building starts lost 14% during the month and residential was 6% lower. On the contrary, nonbuilding starts gained 13% in June due to the start of several large solar projects. Year-to-date, total construction was 5% higher in the first six months of 2022 compared to the same period of 2021. Nonresidential building starts rose 13% and residential starts gained 3%, while nonbuilding starts were 2% lower.
The top 10 quick-service restaurant apps in the U.S. were downloaded 10.4 million times in June, 3.7 percent less than those the month prior. Year-over-year in the month of June, downloads of the top 36 quick-service apps are up 35 percent. A download represents a new user and the first conversion on the mobile app customer’s journey.
Our Quarterly Index Reports analyze the Q2 2022 performance of five key retail sectors – grocery, QSR, fitness, superstores, and dollar stores – from a location data perspective. The reports provide insights into the Q2 2022 performance of each category by diving into foot traffic patterns of each sector as a whole and evaluating visit metrics for leading brands. Below is a taste of the findings.
Amazon’s Prime program has vastly expanded its features over the years – adding streaming media, discounts at Whole Foods, and a recently announced free year of Grubhub+/Seamless+. Will tying in with other loyalty programs provide a boost to subscriptions? In today’s Insight Flash, we examine cross-shopper behavior to assess the desirability of the partnership, as well as looking at retention for Grubhub+ and whether new Prime subscribers have been slowing.
Discord just surpassed 500M lifetime downloads and $100M in-app purchase (IAP) revenue. Originally started in 2015 as a VoIP and instant messaging social platform for the gaming community, today it serves a wide spectrum of interest groups, connecting them in "servers" to chat via text, video, or audio. The average session time per daily active user (DAU) on Discord is twice as long as that of streaming platform Twitch, and more than double that of Facebook Gaming, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, and Snap.
Prime Day usually takes place in June or July, and gives Amazon and other retailers a chance to entice shoppers with the promise of steep discounts for Back to School and other items in a period traditionally devoid of major sales events. The context for Prime Day 2022, however, was the significant inventory surplus that led many retailers to offer massive discounts before Prime Day even rolled around.
Spotify is the most installed entertainment app through the first half of 2022. We've also posted the overall download leaders for H1 2022. Spotify was #9 globally but did not break into the U.S. list. Even with Netflix's struggles, it's consistently being downloaded more than its competition, just not in its home market of the United States. If we had included TikTok in the Entertainment category (which may happen moving forward), it would have led all apps both globally and in the United States.
This year, Ramadan ran from April 2 to May 1, 2022. This period of time is often associated with large shopping sales in many markets. We took a look at the latest mobile trends during Ramadan 2022. Similar to other religious holidays, Ramadan is also an important month for retailers. Many sales accompany the festivities. Mobile shopping took on an even more important role amidst COVID-induced lockdowns and social-distancing measures.
With the midterm elections fast approaching and the balance of power in Washington teetering on the edge, Democrats and Republicans are doing everything in their power to get in voters’ good graces. One of the ways they’re doing that is by investing in ads. We looked at our data through April of this year to understand how both parties are spending their ad dollars leading up to one of the most pivotal elections in the history of the United States.
