Despite a Promising Early Start in July, Back-to-School Shopping Suffers in August Due to Market Instability, According to New Report From Euclid Analytics

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 17, 2015) - Euclid Analytics, the leader in location analytics, today released its Back-to-School U.S. Retail Benchmark report with key findings about in-store traffic and customer behavior during the back-to-school shopping season. This report measured data on hundreds of millions of domestic shopping sessions between July and August to understand how brick-and-mortar behavior affected the overall season.

Based on Euclid's data, July was the bigger shopping month. Retailers were also able to drive traffic with promotions and increase the duration in their stores after a minor summer slump. In August, however, the dwindling impact of promotions and concerns over international markets caused shoppers to visit physical stores less -- only making trips for necessities.

Here are some of Euclid's top findings around shopper behavior metrics in the Back-to-School retail season:

• Storefront Conversion increased over 1% year-over-year in the month of July as Back-to-School sales started to gain traction earlier in the summer. While this was an effective strategy in July, it did not hold in August as storefront conversion decreased 0.4% month-over-month and 1.2% less than the prior year.
• Bounce rate declined almost 4% year-over-year, while duration increased more than 10% (or almost 3 minutes) year-over-year in July. This was likely due to the retailers' ability to better staff for the Back-to-School promotions and increased adoption of omnichannel tactics in stores, including kiosks and iPads to check inventory.
• August saw almost a 9% drop in traffic year-over-year, after U.S. stocks plunged on concerns about the Chinese economy. Despite this, active repeat customers creeped up 1% year-over-year, as retailers were able to pull in some of their more loyal regulars.

"While concerns over the Chinese economy and U.S. stock market definitely had an impact on consumer confidence, it did not slow down the more loyal shoppers," said Brent Franson, CEO of Euclid Analytics. "As online channels continue to rapidly change the face of retail, differentiated and unique experiences are essential to proactively drawing in loyal shoppers. Ultimately, retaining loyal shoppers will come down to creating new, seamless experiences."

The best shopping day during the Back-to-School period was Saturday, July 18th. This day experienced higher traffic and engagement rates likely due the initial momentum of promotions. On the other hand, Wednesday, August 26th was the worst shopping day of the season. This day experienced the lowest traffic and lowest storefront potential, demonstrating that the major shopping season was coming to a close as students went back to the classroom.

To view the complete findings, download the full report on shopper activity for July through August here: http://info.euclidanalytics.com/WC15-09BacktoSchool_Reg_RLP.html.

About Euclid
Euclid Analytics is the world leader in location analytics. The company provides answers and insights for the physical world in the same way that web analytics does for e-commerce. By accurately analyzing visitor traffic, behavior and shopping patterns, Euclid helps the world's leading brands design the perfect customer experience for their brick-and-mortar locations and drive better business results.

Euclid's network captures billions of measurements per day, analyzing hundreds of millions of potential shopping sessions per year across tens of thousands of locations including retail stores, quick service restaurants, airports and shopping malls. Only non-personal data is collected and only aggregated trend data is shared for analysis.

Euclid is backed by leading venture capital firms Benchmark Capital and NEA. For more information, visit http://euclidanalytics.com.