In assessing U.S. holiday-season store traffic from November 1 to December 24, Placer.ai found that retail store visits grew 2.8% year-over-year, but growth didn’t occur evenly across the sector, with some channels experiencing declines.
According to Placer.ai, value retailers saw the biggest foot traffic increases, with visits up 11.7% at thrift stores and 6.6% at off-price retailers. Wholesale club traffic advanced 7.5%, while discount and dollar stores’ visits rose 6.9%. However, luxury apparel retailers were weaker, with sales gains of 1.8%, while traffic at electronics stores actually declined by 1.5%, with traditional apparel stores slipping 1.8%, and mid-tier department stores falling 6.2%. Traffic at home furnishings stores dipped 0.8% as they didn’t necessarily rank highly as gift sources in the 2025 holiday season, Placer.ai maintained.
In an interesting turn, categories most closely tied to self-gifting performed well compared to more traditional holiday segments during the 2025 season, with pet stores and services up 5.5% year over year and home improvement retailers up 3.4%, Placer.ai reported.
Open-air shopping centers saw a visit gain of 1.7%, the most of any mall type analyzed by Placer.ai, and outlet malls saw visits fall 0.8%. Indoor mall traffic gained 0.8%.
The mountain region of the western United States saw some strength when it came to holiday store visits, with Utah, up 5.3%, and Idaho, up 5%, leading nationwide gains. Visitation was above average in North Dakota, Kansas, Arizona and New Mexico as well. In contrast, traffic was relatively soft in New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa, Placer.ai noted.
Looking ahead to 2026, Placer-ai suggested consumer spending behavior is fragmenting, and, based on its data, retailers might consider moving past one-dimensional value messaging and sharpening their core propositions. Those retail segments that can clearly articulate why they are worth taking the trip to the store through pricing power, assortment differentiation or alignment with everyday consumer priorities may be best positioned to win share as the year progresses, according to Placer.ai.
