Shopping Mall Foot Traffic Exceeds Pre-Pandemic Levels For First Time In 2021: Report

Shopping mall foot traffic during July exceeded pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels by 0.7%, according to a new data report from the analytics platform Placer.ai. This marks the first time that 2021 mall visit data exceeded the levels from pre-pandemic 2019.

What A Difference Two Years Make: The new data report also determined visit times at malls have changed since the pandemic disrupted the economy.

During the second quarter of this year, 33.4% of visits were between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. while 34.3% of visits were between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. However, in the second quarter of 2019, only 27.2% of visits occurred between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. while 28.5% of visits took place from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The time difference can be explained by the significant shift in evening visits between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. These represented 25.4% of visits in the second quarter of 2019 but only 15.9% in the second quarter of 2021.

Prior to the pandemic, the percentage of mall visitors arriving from work was around 6.5%. But with more Americans transitioned to a work-from-home scenario, that percentage shrank to the current level of 2.8%.

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Waiting For A Revival: The new data also identified several major shopping malls that are still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels. The Mall of America in Minnesota, the nation’s largest mall, saw a year-over-two-year decline in visits of 9.8%.

Other major malls reporting declines between the second quarters of 2019 and 2021 are Destiny USA mall in Syracuse, New York (a -17.6% drop in foot traffic), Florida’s Aventura Mall (-16.8%) and Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California (-16.4%).

Photo: Mall of America, photographed by jpellgen / Flickr Creative Commons.