Dive Brief:

• The 2.1% year-over-year April sales and traffic decline experienced by physical stores reflects an increase from February and March that portends continued improvements, according to a Composite Index Report from in-store analytics company RetailNext. 

• The report looked at more than 14 million shopping trips in the continental United States and found that traffic fell 5.4% in February and 8.2% in March from 2013, making the April sales decrease good news.

• RetailNext noted that with economists predicting increased economic improvement this year, retailers should be able to look forward to continued improvements in traffic and sales in their physical stores.

Dive Insight:

This RetailNext report includes data suggesting that the weather continued to batter physical store sales well into this year. It also makes a convincing case that April’s slow retail activity is actually quite an improvement over last year.