Superstores Are Keeping Their Pandemic-Era Gains

With many commercial real estate categories showing trends that are normalizing back to a pre-pandemic state, one category is holding on to its gains of the last few years: Superstores. 

Placer.ai took a look at foot traffic for several of the most prominent and largest superstores: Walmart, Target, Costco Wholesale, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Sam’s Club and found that they experienced significant year-over-four-years, or Yo4Y, growth over the past four months. 

Recent months did bring a year-over-year decline at most due to consumers cutting back. May 2023 showed a particular decline in visits compared to a year ago. But then for June and July, the numbers narrowed, suggesting that consumers may be less worried about inflation as they hit the stores again.

Now that the second half of the year is moving forward, Placer.ai provided data for the superstores for both YoY and Yo4Y growth:

YoY: At Costco, where household median income is the highest in this superstore category, sales outperformed competitors almost every month analyzed. Brands that cater to more affluent shoppers were less affected and YoY visit increases indicate improvement in gaining new members. 

And though Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, had the lowest median household income in its True Trade Areas—the actual areas where visitors to a site come from, it outperformed Target, BJ’s and Sam’s Club on a YoY visit basis both in June and July. The report suggests that may be due in part to more shoppers trading down and trying to stretch their budgets because of inflation. The Costco and Walmart results, which reflect opposite ends of the shopper income spectrum, provide another nugget of retail analysis: that more than one retail business model can survive and thrive in the current challenging economy.

Yo4Y: When taking a longer look back to pre-pandemic 2019, all of these superstores except Walmart, which has been consolidating stores since 2019, experienced significant Yo4Y growth over the past four months. Target, BJ’s and Sam’s Club saw YoY visits fall 1%, 3% and 1%, respectively. But in July of this year, these same superstores had Yo4Y visits increase a very impressive 7.9%, 6.7% and 8.5%, respectively, for the same period. What this indicates is that most major superstores were able to retain their pandemic gains even as visits fluctuated, and they “are still well-positioned to bounce back once the wider economic situation stabilizes,” the report said.

Even Walmart is experiencing visit increases in some states, giving it potential for growth. To date, its locations faring best are in the Northeast in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, Foot traffic there between January and July of this year exceeded foot traffic of 2022 levels except for May, a challenging month for most retailers across sectors in the country. Those Northeastern locations also performed better than the nationwide YoY visit average.