US GAFO retail sales--general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other--grew 5% year-over-year in May, estimates Euclid, with metrics indicating a positive outlook for retail industry revenues

Cindy Allen

SAN FRANCISCO , June 9, 2014 (press release) – Euclid, the leader of in-store retail analytics, today releases its monthly retail benchmarks report to analyze shopper activity and behavior during the month of May. This month's report measured data from tens of millions of domestic shopping sessions to reveal that shoppers made fewer trips to the store than expected, but were very engaged and showed a lot of intent to buy.

Euclid asserts that its metrics illustrate a positive outlook for industry revenues, and estimates sales growth in the following retail verticals of:

5% growth year-over-year in general merchandise, apparel, furniture and other (GAFO) retail sales
7% growth year-over-year in clothing and apparel sales
2% growth year-over-year in general merchandise sales

Here are some of Euclid's top findings in this month's report around shopper behavior metrics:

Shopper traffic declined eleven percent compared to the same month last year, as travel plans appeared to cannibalize leisure time, with millions of Americans traveling greater than 50 miles from home over the Memorial Day Weekend
Storefront conversion was up slightly as this May remained more promotional than last year, especially leading up to Mother's Day
Average duration increased six percent from last year due to a rebounding interest in more exploratory shopping, following the muted winter months. The increase in visit duration was the most significant driver of positive sales performance in May
Repeat visits decreased one percent year-over-year but bounced back from a low in April. This rebound is another positive sign for sales

The best day of the month was Thursday the 29th, with outperformance across all metrics. The worst day of the month was Sunday the 4th, which saw significant underperformance in traffic. In addition, fewer than expected repeat shoppers were seen on this day.

To view the complete findings, download the full report on shopper activity for the month of May here: http://info.euclidanalytics.com/WC14-05USRB_Reg_RLP.html

About Euclid
Euclid provides answers and insights to brick and mortar retailers in the same way that web analytics services do for e-commerce. Euclid helps retailers quantify the offline impact of marketing, optimize store performance, and understand customer behavior. Euclid's network has grown to capture billions of measurements per day, analyzing hundreds of millions of shopping sessions per year across thousands of locations. Only anonymous, non-personal data is ever collected and only aggregated trend data is used for analysis. Visit http://euclidanalytics.com/ for more information.

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