Valentine's Shoppers Flocked to Stores, Traffic and Transactions Surged Finds RetailNext in Latest Insights Infographic

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Love was in the air, and in the store aisles, this February. Store traffic and sales rose significantly this Valentine's Day season, revealed in-store analytics leader RetailNext in its latest retail Insights infographic. In particular, Specialty and Small Format General Merchandise retailers successfully bargained this traffic increase into a strong selling season, while Department and Off-Price stores failed to capitalize on the Valentine's Day surge.

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In the company's first Valentine's Day edition of its retail Insights, RetailNext analyzed 287 U.S. retail stores' performance, examining the in-store behaviors of more than four million shoppers in Specialty, Department Store/Off-price, and Small Format General Merchandise retailers.

Gleaned through in-store monitoring and analysis using integrated video analytics, on-shelf sensors, and data from point-of-sale and other business systems, the data that RetailNext aggregated and analyzed indicated a strong tendency for last-minute shopping, especially in Small Format General Merchandise retailers. In fact, these merchants saw a more than 20% increase in average ticket value, representing great upside for the segment.

Other key findings in the RetailNext Shopper Insights for Valentine's Day 2012 include: 

• Traffic on Valentine's Day spiked +22% in Small Format General Merchandise, +9% in Department, and +7% in Specialty stores.
• Procrastinating Valentine shoppers preferred Small Format General Merchandise (+36%) instead of Specialty (-16%) stores on February 13th.
• Specialty retailers converted better (+2%) than in non-seasonal times, with shoppers spending more per transaction at Specialty and Small Format General Merchandise stores.
• Chocolate was an extremely popular gift, achieving 84% of candy gift sales and more than 50% of all seasonal sales across all channels.

"We saw a marked tendency toward last-minute shopping in the Valentine's Day season, more so than with most other holidays," said Chitra Balasubramanian, VP of Insights, RetailNext. "The stores that did well are those that converted the rush into more actual sales or higher average ticket value.  Based on that intelligence, we advise retailers to focus heavily next year on conversion in the days leading up to Valentine's Day and to make sure they stock the top-converting seasonal items."

For more information about Valentine's Day shopping, including a breakdown of candy sales by product type, see RetailNext's Valentine's Day Shopper Insights infographic at: http://www.bviretailnext.com/uploads/press/Valentine_Infographic.pdf 

About RetailNext
RetailNext (formerly BVI Networks) is the leader in real-time in-store monitoring, enabling retailers and manufacturers to collect, analyze, and visualize in-store data. The company uses best-in-class video analytics, on-shelf sensors, data from point-of-sale systems, and other sources, to automatically inform retailers about how people engage in their stores. The highly scalable RetailNext products easily integrate with promotional calendars, staffing systems, and weather services to analyze how internal and external factors impact customer shopping patterns – providing store operations executives with the ability to identify opportunities for growth, execute changes, and measure success.

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, RetailNext tracks more than 25 million shoppers per month by collecting data from more than 15,000 sensors in retail stores, capturing and analyzing trillions of data points per year.  RetailNext is a growing global brand currently operating in 18 countries. For more information, call +1-888-609-5877.

SOURCE RetailNext