Retail location traffic improving – data

THE latest Google mobility data show that traffic to retail locations nationally has continued to increase, but less foot traffic to workplaces reflects the possibility that a number of businesses have closed permanently.

Absa economist Peter Worthington said: “Traffic to grocery and pharmacy stores, which are grouped together, and other retail areas continued to improve relative to the week before.

“In the week ending July 3, the deviation from the pre-lockdown baseline was just -25.7%, compared with -26.6% in the week before. This likely mainly reflects work-from-home policies across some industries but possibly also firms that have permanently shut down.

“Into June, the move to level 3 lockdown restrictions created scope for further gradual normalisation in economic activity.

“The more recent higher frequency data, such as the Google mobility and Yoco SME turnover data, on balance, also show an improving trend, although absolute levels remain well below pre-lockdown baselines.”

The report is an ongoing project by Google that uses anonymised data to identify trends in community movement during the pandemic.

Google said: “Insights in these reports are created with aggregated, anonymised sets of data from users who have turned on the ‘Location History’ setting, which is off by default.”

According to the data, when it comes to retail locations which include places such as restaurants, cafés, shopping centres, theme parks, museums, libraries and cinemas, movement was at -34% when compared to the baseline or pre-pandemic levels in February.

Residents are still using public transport far less than pre-pandemic levels, with the foot traffic to public transport hubs, such as bus and train stations recorded at -56% compared to baseline while to workplaces it was at -38% compared to baseline.

The mobility at residential locations shows the only positive over baseline marks in the survey with mobility trends for places of residence showing +19% compared to baseline.

The report also provides a regional overview of movement for each province. For instance, it shows that Gauteng has a 22% increase in residential movement compared to February.

When it comes to workplaces, there is a stark contrast between provinces. Some provinces, such as Limpopo and Mpumalanga, show an increase in workplace movement when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

“This likely mainly reflects work-from-home across some industries Peter Worthington ABSA ECONOMIST