Eye-catching displays and timely promotions are winning over consumers, offering stores a powerful ways to drive sales and connect with shoppers.
In this edition, dive into 2024’s standout holiday spending trends, from record-breaking Super Bowl and Easter purchases to festive engagement on St. Patrick’s Day and Independence Day.
Plus, get a glimpse of the future of retail with Sam’s Club’s innovative tech-forward store concept, reshaping the in-store experience with digital tools and automation.
Today's Rundown
- Corporate Takeover: Home Depot to require all corporate employees to work quarterly 8-hour retail shifts.
- Engineering Breakthrough: Could 3D concrete printing be the future of retail construction?
- OUT NOW: Sign up to receive the Q3 2024 Home Furnishing Benchmark Report.
Trakwell Feature of the Week
This is where each week we highlight a feature within Trakwell. This week’s feature is: Quick Entry
When QUICK ENTRY is enabled, Trakwell will only ask a salesperson one question: Did the interaction with the customer end in a sale, no-sale, or potential sale? Within less than 10 seconds of your salesperson’s time, Trakwell calculates sales conversion, time with customers, and the breakdown of sale/no-sale/potential sales.
2024 Holiday Spend Recap
Consumer spending around major holidays continues to grow. From Super Bowl parties to Easter meals, consumers are increasingly influenced by in-store displays and seasonal promotions, offering retailers valuable opportunities to engage shoppers and drive sales during peak holiday seasons.
The NRF’s 2024 Super Bowl survey highlighted a steady rise in consumer spending, reaching $17.3 billion, with food and beverages consistently the top spending category (77-82%). Average spending per person ticked up slightly to $86.04, underscoring food’s prominence in Super Bowl festivities. Additionally, fan interest hit a high, with 77% of consumers planning to watch the event—marking the highest turnout since 2016.
This year’s St. Patrick’s Day and Easter celebrations also saw record engagement and spending, with consumers prioritizing food, beverage, and traditional activities. For St. Patrick’s Day, Americans planned to spend an average of $44.40 per person, with 162 million people celebrating, and food as the top category. Meanwhile, Easter spending averaged $177.06 per person, with food accounting for $7.3 billion of total spending. Consumers were inspired by holiday displays, with 24% reporting influence from seasonal decorations when shopping for Easter items.
Independence Day celebrations in 2024 also reflected these spending trends, with 87% of Americans participating and an average spend of $90.42 per person on food. Cookouts and picnics remained the most popular activities (66%), followed by fireworks at 44%. These patterns reveal the lasting importance of food-related spending across holiday occasions, a trend retailers can leverage by enhancing in-store displays and seasonal promotions
Inside the Store: Sam’s Club unveils its store of the future
Sam’s Club is piloting a new, highly automated store in Grapevine, Texas, designed to eliminate traditional checkout lanes by encouraging customers to use its “Scan & Go” technology. This feature allows shoppers to scan items with their phones and pay through the app, aiming to reduce checkout friction and offer a smoother experience. With about 30% of Sam’s Club customers already using the app, the retailer is enhancing its digital infrastructure to align with customer preferences.
The Grapevine location also incorporates smart digital displays and automation to guide customers with product choices and real-time inventory updates, providing an interactive and tech-forward shopping environment. The store includes an expanded selection of fresh groceries, catering to evolving consumer demands and supporting a grocery experience integrated with high-tech elements. This initiative reflects Sam’s Club’s strategy to blend digital engagement with in-store shopping, creating a model that could influence its future locations.
Sam’s Club aims to appeal to its digitally connected member base, while also testing how such innovations impact customer experience and operations. If successful, this approach could pave the way for similar concepts across its network, emphasizing Sam’s Club’s commitment to tech-centric and customer-focused retail solutions.
Retail Snippets
Corporate Takeover: Home Depot to require all corporate employees to work quarterly 8-hour retail shifts.
Engineering Breakthrough: Could 3D concrete printing be the future of retail construction?
Spooky Trends: Consumer trends to watch this Halloween shopping season.
Random Irrelevance
Jaw-dropping: New report reveals causes of Arecibo Telescope collapse.
Security Breach: Nearly a million users affected by Landmark data breach.
First Look: Neuralink brain implant wins an FDA nod to tackle blindness.
