Visits to US Retailers Dip Alongside Consumer Confidence

Want additional evidence of the American consumer’s declining confidence? Check out retail foot traffic.

Visits to U.S. stores dropped by 4.3% in early March, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (March 16), citing data from RetailNext. That drop was on top of decreases that kicked off with the beginning of the year.

And Placer.ai, which tracks signals from consumers’ mobile devices, has notched fewer trips to big box retailers like Walmart and Target in the past few weeks, the report added.

The past week saw the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment recorded its third monthly decline in a row and the lowest reading since November 2022. That survey also found that consumers’ inflation expectations were on the rise.

The decline in sentiment for present and future conditions was consistent “across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations and geographic regions,” Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said in a news release.

“To get a sense of how sharp the turn has been, consider that sentiment has fallen for three consecutive months and is down 22% from December,” PYMNTS wrote last week.

“If the March reading released Friday holds up in subsequent reports (and if it does not decline further), the report would be the lowest since November 2022. It would also constitute the steepest cumulative decline in sentiment for the first quarter following a presidential election in the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has declined to say whether the U.S. will slip into a recession, the FT added, while a declining stock market has hammered the investments of rich Americans who drive consumer spending.

“The consumer is being barraged with so many different elements,” Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at Circana, told the FT. “It’s easier for the consumer to just step back and say: ‘I’m going to ride this out and wait and see what happens.’”

Circana’s data shows that sales of discretionary general merchandise dipped by 3% for the week ending March 8, following a string of year-over-year declines in February.

The report also cited numbers from Revenue Management Solutions showing visits to fast food eateries down 2.8% in February, with breakfast-time visits falling by double digits.

“It’s the easiest meal to make at home or skip entirely,” the consultancy said.