By Shelly Banjo and Paul Ziobro | The Wall Street Journal
Shift to Online Sales Is Prompting Retailers to Scale Back More Store Openings
U.S. retailers are facing a steep and persistent drop in store traffic, which is weighing on sales and prompting chains to slow store openings as shoppers make more of their purchases online.
Aside from a small uptick in April, shopper visits have fallen by 5% or more from a year earlier in every month for the past two years, according to ShopperTrak, a Chicago-based data firm that records store visits for retailers using tracking devices installed at 40,000 U.S. outlets. Even as warmer temperatures replace the harsh winter weather this year, store visits fell by nearly 7% in June and nearly 5% in July, according to ShopperTrak.
