Stores must scale back to 50% occupancy while Dallas-area shoppers try to do some holiday shopping - The Dallas Morning News

People have gifts to buy, and new shopping center customer traffic data shows that Dallas area residents are making the trek but very gingerly.

In many parts of Texas, including Dallas County, the hospitalization level reached the number that requires malls and stores to go back to 50% capacity after being allowed 75% capacity during the Thanksgiving-Black Friday week.

While no one expects malls and shopping centers to make up for their on again, off again “nonessential” status of 2020, strong retail properties may be able to salvage the holiday season.

Shopper visit declines of between 20% and 30% for the week ended Dec. 6 vs. last year may not be so bad during a pandemic, according to new data from Placer.ai gathered from 10 shopping centers for The Dallas Morning News.

“While visits are down, the magnitude of each visit has also changed,” said Ethan Chernofsky, vice president of marketing at Placer.ai.

These are “high-intention visits” with people spending more than they would on a more casual visit to the mall pre-pandemic, he said. “If you’re willing to go to the mall, you’re buying something.”

The 10 properties were selection for their geography and type of center. The batch of traffic from Placer.ai, a foot-traffic analytics firm that uses location data from mobile devices, represents customer trends from Monday, Nov. 30, through Sunday, Dec. 6, vs. the same week last year.

Flat is great in a pandemic, and that’s what shopping center traffic was at the two big outdoor outlets, Allen and Grand Prairie Premium Outlets, from a year ago.

Highland Park Village had traffic that was just down 6.6% from last year. And customer traffic declines from a year ago ranged from 16% at Grapevine Mills to 42.1% at Plano’s Shops at Willow Bend. Galleria Dallas had a decline of 22.3% from last year as its giant tree in the ice rink is a must-see every year for many families.

Separately, Placer.ai tracked changes for the week ended Dec. 6 from the prior week, which included Black Friday.

Week-ago comparisons give a different snapshot from the week that included Black Friday when people were off work and enticed by discounts to go out.

Traffic at outlet centers cooled some. Visits declined 20.6% at Grapevine Mills to down 25.9% and 28.5% at Grand Prairie and Allen Premium Outlets.

Traditional malls had better results as shoppers gained some confidence and others were ready to take their families to see socially distanced Santas.

Dallas’ NorthPark Center’s traffic fell only 11.1% from the prior week, when it had a busy Black Friday. Traffic was down only 9.4% at Town East Mall and down 10.8% at Garland’s Firewheel Town Center.

NorthPark may see an even better week-to-week improvement when this week’s results are reported next week due to the opening Wednesday of Eataly, an Italian grocery and restaurant emporium.

Highland Park Village had a big jump from the prior week, with visits up 27.8%. The luxury shopping center’s lit-up trees are a stop for people looking to shop outdoors in the evening and drive around to see Christmas lights.

Overall, Placer.ai is also seeing variations in the days of the week. A Wednesday may spike up or Sunday may be strong enough to make up for weakness on Friday and Saturday. “Some days are way up and some days are way down,” Chernofsky said.

Cyber Monday, which was Nov. 30, is traditionally a huge online day, but it ended up being a big in-store shopping day, he said.

“What we’re seeing is people trying to do as much as possible what they normally did but being really careful,” Chernofsky said.

While sales data per mall isn’t available, Chernofsky said, underlying mall traffic results may look like what’s been happening at big box stores. Walmart’s results in the second and third quarter included customer traffic that was down 11% to 12% but then the retailer announced results that showed in-store transactions were down but basket sizes were much larger, leading to overall sales increases.

Traffic for these 10 shopping centers will be updated weekly through the rest of the holiday season. Here is last week’s data:

Twitter: @MariaHalkias

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