Prime Day 2017 Marked Week of Lowest Foot Traffic for Retailers Last Summer

Those are the latest numbers on foot traffic and e-commerce from location data experts at Foursquare, which posted the information on Medium. As we suggested over here at Street Fight last week, Prime Day, which arrives this Monday and continues on through Tuesday, is a testament to Amazon’s power to disrupt all of retail when it so chooses.

According to Foursquare, retailers in a variety of major categories were hit hard by Amazon’s make-believe holiday. Those categories include department, big-box, discount, electronics, and clothing stories, though department stores were hit the hardest, registering a dip in traffic of over 7.5% during Prime Week compared to the average 2017 summer week.

Retailers continued to suffer even into the following week, but recovery began to set in across the board, as foot traffic losses of about 5% or more sank down to 2 or 3%.

There’s no reason to believe a priori that this year’s Prime Day will be any less decisive in demonstrating Amazon’s dominance and the danger it poses to brick-and-mortars.