Rising inflation may be weighing consumer confidence, but one metric is getting stronger: shopper traffic in US downtowns.
Foot traffic in May ticked up to 27.8% below 2019 levels from 32% below pre-pandemic numbers in April, according to Springboard data. It's the narrowest gap from 2019 since the onset of the pandemic, one driven primarily, it seems, by employees returning to the office.
The gap from the 2019 traffic level over the weekday period narrowed to -31.7% from -36.1% in April, while the difference between weekdays and the weekend stood at -15.7% in May, versus -18.5% in April and -21.7% in March. Foot traffic in downtowns also improved over all periods during the day last month, though the breakfast and lunch periods still remained wider than later in the day.
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