I just finished reading "The 2026 Retail Intelligence Report" by Julia Tabisz in Progressive Grocer, built on Placer.ai foot traffic data. Here's my read.
The big picture is no surprise. Grocery traffic is up just 1% so far this year. The shopper is splitting in two: fresh-format grocers are up 5% with shoppers earning a median $113,900, and value grocers keep gaining share with shoppers earning a median $80,700. Traditional supermarkets are caught in the middle, sliding from 74.6% of visits in 2023 to 72.3% today.
But the number that jumped out at me was buried near the end.
Sprouts saw total visits grow, yet average visits per location fell 4.7%. ALDI's per-store traffic fell 1.7%. Placer.ai calls it the cost of rapid physical expansion.
I call it the most important number in the report.
I spent almost eight years building the development team at Sprouts, and I'm proud of every one of the 239 stores we opened. So I say this with respect and a lot of firsthand experience: when a growth plan is running hot, total visits can look great while the average store quietly gets weaker.
How does that happen?
- Cannibalization. A new store pulls customers from the one ten minutes away.
- Market saturation. You run out of A trade areas and start approving B sites to hit the opening schedule.
- Thinner new markets. Expansion regions take longer to build the loyalty your core markets already have.
In a flat market, every new store has to take share from someone. Sometimes that someone is you.
This is why I always come back to the same disciplines:
1. Forecast cannibalization honestly, with a burn-off assumption, before approval.
2. Track every new store's actual sales against its forecast, every year.
3. Hold the line on site criteria, even when the opening schedule says otherwise.
The report also shows the South is the fastest-growing grocery region, with value and specialty chains like ALDI, Trader Joe's and Sprouts pushing into a market that's still 80% traditional grocers. More operators chasing the same space in the same trade areas. The dilution risk is only going up.
Growth is exciting. Growth that makes every store stronger is the goal.
One caveat: this is foot traffic, not sales. Fewer visits per store doesn't automatically mean lower sales per store. But it's a signal every development team should be watching.
How is your team measuring whether new stores are adding to the network or borrowing from it?
Source: "The 2026 Retail Intelligence Report," Julia Tabisz, Progressive Grocer, with data from Placer.ai.