January is well-known to be the biggest month for health and fitness app activity, so let's take the data out for a spin and see what we can determine. We'll start high level and then drill down into the performance of several Health & Fitness subcategories for the United States.
When many Americans sheltered in their homes early in the coronavirus pandemic, meal delivery sales reached new heights. Our data reveals that in January, sales for meal delivery services grew 164 percent year-over-year, collectively. Shelter-in-place orders may also be driving more Americans to make their first meal delivery purchase. In January, 46 percent of U.S. consumers had ever ordered from one of the services in our analysis, up from 36 percent a year ago.
When U.S. cities and states faced shelter-in-place orders to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Americans’ reduced mobility resulted in plummeting sales at rideshare companies. While rideshare sales have been gradually recovering over the past several months, November marked a decline for the first time since April. Sales rebounded slightly in January, but Uber sales were still down 67 percent year-over-year and Lyft sales were down 70 percent year-over-year.
Admittedly, we have high hopes for the gym sector and for Planet Fitness specifically. But there are reasons for the excitement and January data shows both why we are particularly optimistic, and why that optimism may be difficult to see upon initial glance. Looking at Planet Fitness monthly visits year over year paints a very clear, if not expected, picture. The brand kicked off 2020 with huge amounts of visit growth before quickly and obviously succumbing to the damaging effects of COVID.
In a former report, we used Measurable AI’s unique e-receipts data to look at the food delivery industry in APAC in the early months of covid-19, and saw a huge surge in food delivery volume. After six months, the pandemic is still not over, and so is the competition among the food delivery companies. Based on one year of historical data in 2020, Measurable AI presents the second part of the food delivery industry research, covering market share, user behavior, and pricing strategy.
January was encouraging for the restaurant industry. With same-store sales growth of -4.9% and traffic growth of -12.2%, it was the best performance for restaurants since the beginning of the pandemic almost a year ago. This is good news for an industry that struggled the last two months of 2020, as sales and traffic growth worsened compared to the COVID-era peak achieved in October. Likely contributing to some of the consumer pent up demand for restaurant spending was a combination stimulus check distribution, a sense of optimism from turning the page on 2020 and the increased prospect of additional government aid soon.
The mass migration from broadcast TV to on-demand – and from big-screen to mobile – started a decade ago. Lockdown moved it to a new level, with app-based video streaming up 40% in a year. According to our State of Mobile 2021 report, global mobile consumers streamed 146 billion hours on mobile devices in Q1 2019. By Q4 2020 they were streaming around 240 billion hours — a rise of nearly 65% in 2 years. The increase for 2020 alone was 40% to 935 billion hours.
It seems that not even a global pandemic can keep people off dating apps – as female-marketed Bumble lands an $8B valuation in its IPO. In the last four years Bumble has grown from low single digits to capture 13% of the dating market by sales, while eharmony, Zoosk, and other* smaller services saw their shares decline.
Consumer Edge’s recently launched UK dataset is very complimentary to our existing US data, and has proven to be highly predictive for US-based companies, such as AMZN, in both markets. In today’s Insight Flash, we examine how trends in the two countries have differed, including spend growth, average ticket, and the importance of Prime Day.
It’s been a year now into full or partial lockdowns, social distancing rules and work from home as a result of the COVID crisis which unequivocally forced people to spend more time into their homes and consequently to change their shopping habits - reconsidering what is essential and therefore set new priorities on what to buy. One of the new essentials seems to be – not surprisingly – bedding products as people seek extra comfort at home. Mattress sales soared in the second half of 2020 since many Americans decided to upgrade their sleeping setup.
Walmart felt the same offline effects as other retailers in late 2020 as the holiday season was hit hard by a resurgence of COVID cases. The result was a November year-over-year visit gap of 13.8%, the largest since April. But December saw the visit gap shrink to 10.6%, and January saw that drop to just 7.2% year over year – the best since October’s mark of 6.7%. And while this is a success in and of itself, when combined with the mission-driven shopping trend that has boosted basket size, the impact could be even more significant.
Footfall across British clothes shops has been lower than the rest of Europe for the entire pandemic as tough lockdown measures push customers to online retailers. While footfall across UK clothing retailers has flatlined during this second lockdown, it’s significant to note that equivalent levels in Europe have been tracking at 30pts since early December.
While apartment demand was dismal through the first half of last year, absorption rebounded in the third and fourth quarters. Over the last few months many markets, in particular those across California and Florida, managed to significantly surpass their demand performance from the same period a year ago. The resurgence in national absorption has been timely as new projects continue to be added to the new construction pipeline at a rapid pace. All told, ALN is tracking more than 2.5 million pipeline units, though more than half of that total have yet to break ground.
In this Placer Bytes, we dive into pharmacy giant CVS and one of the biggest surprises in retail, Floor & Decor. With CVS beginning in-store vaccinations, there is reason to be excited about the brand’s prospects in the coming months. But this is especially true considering the strength it’s already shown. Visits to CVS locations were down just 0.1% in October before a surge in COVID cases drove the visit gap to 6.8% in November. Yet, even with that challenge, visits rebounded in December and were down just 3.6% year over year that month.
Mobile retail scales new heights in 2020 as COVID closes physical stores. Consumers also begin experimenting with next-gen smartphone shopping habits: social commerce and livestream shopping. It's become a cliche to talk about how 2020 accelerated consumers towards a new (digital) normal. But this was never more true than in retail. In our State of Mobile 2021 report, we showcase how 2020 came to be the biggest mobile shopping year to date. Global time spent in shopping apps (outside of China) grew 45% year over year.
While GameStop (NYSE: GME) has been in the news due to the recent Reddit-fueled buzz, trading activity, and stock volatility, transaction data reveals that its sales have decreased over the last two years—exacerbated by COVID-19 as well as the increase in gaming publishers’ and console manufacturers’ direct-to-consumer offerings. Over the last 12 months, GameStop’s average weekly year-over-year sales growth stood at -23 percent.
There is no question that spend in the Grocery sector has been elevated as a result of the pandemic – the real questions are by how much, and how that will change in 2021. Fable Data tracks real-time consumer spending, allowing us to provide valuable insights into the Grocery sector. In 2020, Grocery spend was up c. +12% YoY. The highest growth for this sector was seen in Q2, with spend up c.+18% YoY, as lockdown restrictions were put in place.
On a recent article published by Kate Gibson, Kroger, one of the most prominent grocers in the US, is expected to shut down two California stores to avoid offering workers ‘hazard pay’. Both of these stores are located in the Long Beach area, one is under the Ralph's franchise while the second one under Food 4 Less(both brands are Kroger subsidiaries). When big firms like Kroger decide to close a store, they are taking into consideration many parameters; the first one comes to mind is the profitability of the store itself.
2020 was certainly not the greatest year ever for offline retail, but its effects may already be driving strength for some brands in 2021. While this year will hopefully be marked by a strong recovery amid COVID’s declining effects, some brands are already showing clear strength. Which retailers have had some of the fastest starts to 2021? We looked at the data to find out.
In this Placer Bytes, we dive into two retail segments that seem impervious to the pandemic’s effects – pets and shoes. While it may seem obvious that our pets hold center stage amid the pandemic, the results have still been impressive. The sector has ridden a similar wave to the rest of retail, with recoveries offset by a step back in November, yet this specific space is riding much higher levels of strength than most retail players.
