June 11 2021  |  Associations

North America conversion rates reach peak

By Wendy Morley

The International Association of Airport and Duty Free Stores (IAADFS) has released the Q2 2021 edition of the B1S recovery monitor, which Swiss research agency m1nd-set releases as a complimentary service to all trade associations.

The Q2 monitor shows that in North America footfall and conversion levels, which had been consistently below the global average, increased gradually over the previous four years from 33% to 35%. During the same period, global average declined from 42% to 40%.

In 2021 however, footfall in North America continued to rise, reaching 39% and surpassing the global average, which fell to 37%.

Conversion levels, which had been declining in all regions since 2017, reached 62% in 2021, up from 46% in2020 and surpassing the global average of 59%.

In Central America and the Caribbean, footfall declined over this time period, remaining higher than the global average until this year when it dropped to 35%.

In the Caribbean and Central America, the following categories are becoming more popular:

Skincare, + 11% increase in 2021

Confectionery + 5%

Fashion & Accessories + 4%

Tobacco + 4%

Electronics + 4%

In North America, increasingly popular categories

Perfume + 8%

Tobacco + 7%

Skincare + 7%

Meanwhile, Confectionery (-14%) and Souvenirs/Gift items (-10%)have both seen a decline in popularity among North America.

m1nd-set’s Head of Business Development, Anna Marchesini, commented, “It’s important to take a step backwhen looking at this data and get a holistic overview of the positive and negative elements when analyzingshopper behavior. There are certain fundamental behavioral differences that are quite positive and need to beseized upon by industry stakeholders. It’s important to understand not only the general trends, but why certain trends are occurring, where in particular and among which customer segment, in order to make the data more actionable.”

IAADFS President and CEO Michael Payne added: “It’s really interesting to see how the overall picture ischanging from one quarter to the next. This will inevitably continue to evolve as the year progresses. While wehope this evolution will be for the better, it is important that we as an association and our members continue tomonitor how the traffic and shopper behavior progress. We are in uncharted territory here so it’s extremelyuseful to have this continuity and support with the traffic data and shopper behavior monitoring.”

For more information on the post-COVID recovery research, including the full Q2 2021 monitor report withdetailed executive summary, visitwww.iaadfs.org/page/industrydata.

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