Foot traffic in November was up 13.2% from pre-pandemic 2019.
With its latest earnings coming out on Tuesday, Starbucks (SBUX) – Get Starbucks Corporation Report is one company that many investors are tracking closely: while shares fell 18.32% in the last six months, the number of visitors is strong and likely to get even better.
According to the latest Placer study, in-person visits to Starbucks stores were, in January and February 2021, down a respective 16.1% and 18.4% from pre-pandemic 2019. All that changed quickly and, by March, visits were up 2.1%. By November, Starbucks was seeing 13.2% more visits than last year.
People Keep Coming To Starbucks
Some of it can be attributed to seasonality — according to the study’s authors, visits are typically higher during holidays and back-to-school periods — but the pandemic also played a role. Greater restrictions on indoor dining and public caution around eating inside made early 2021 a challenging period for foot traffic.
“Considering the wider impacts of COVID on shopping and work behavior, it would have been fair to assume that visits would remain below normal levels throughout the year,” the study reads. “And that is exactly how 2021 began […] yet by March, visits had returned to growth and remained that way throughout the rest of the year.”
Each Month Brings A New Story
Despite a general upward trend, there is some fluctuation month to month. When looking at a monthly level, in-store visits were up 14.7% in November but down 2.6% in December. As the pandemic comes with unexpected turns so do store visiting trends.
“As more people return to the office, the drop-in numbers at Starbucks should increase,” reads the report. “At the same time, the new balance in favor of remote and hybrid work should create an added incentive to visit nearby Starbucks locations and utilize the café space as a place to work away from home.”
Placer.Ai
Is Strong Foot Traffic Enough?
In-person visits also paint only a small part of the story as Starbucks has, in the last two years, dealt with a number of other challenges — from employee unionization to rising food costs and the need to offer workers a more competitive work environment in the face of a nationwide labor shortage.
“SBUX probably has bigger problems than the unionization of some of their employees,” analyst Bruce Kamich wrote for TheStreet’s Real Money. “Cost pressures from higher prices for coffee beans, milk, sugar, etc., and pressure to have new locations with drive up windows, and more.”
