“Shop ‘til You Drop”: Where Do Fashion Shoppers Live In America?

October 14, 2019

What does location data tell us about fashion shoppers in the U.S.? For many people, shopping is a favorite pastime, and e-commerce options, such as Amazon or Zappos, have made shopping for a new dress or shoes easier. With mall foot traffic decreasing and 58% of Americans reporting that they’ve purchased fashion online, it’s hard to ignore the impact of the Internet Revolution. Still, only about 14% of total retail sales happened online in 2018. The majority of sales still occur at brick-and-mortar outlets like department stores and boutiques. As such, we wondered what location data might tell us about consumers’ offline shopping habits.

We learned that everyone has shopped in-store for a shirt or pair of sneakers, but residents of some states are far more likely to be ‘Fashion Shoppers.’ These shoppers are people who regularly visit clothing, cosmetic, shoe, or handbag stores. Interestingly, eight of the top ten states are in the South, which is famously known for its distinct “Southern Style” fashion. At the top of our list, Florida boasts the highest percentage among its 21.3 million residents.

“Shop ‘til You Drop”: Where Do Fashion Shoppers Live In America?

Data is measured on a number of quality points, the most common of which are existence (does the organization have access to data?) and validity (are data values acceptable?). But beyond this, the data needs to be consistent, relevant, and have both accuracy and integrity. Data that fails on any of these measures can be considered bad data, and impact the methods by which enterprises create customer profiles – making those profiles at best, skewed and at worst, com

Did You Know? Of the ten most popular malls in America, “The Sunshine State” stakes claim to two of them.

What about the states with the fewest fashion shoppers? Not only do these states tend to have colder climates, their economies also mainly rely on manufacturing or real estate rather than retail or tourism, which may be reasons for the smaller shopper populations. Additionally, the majority of the bottom ten ‘Fashion Shoppers’ states also have the lowest personal consumption on clothing and footwear in the country.

The index numbers provide a way to compare the percentages of ‘Fashion Shoppers’ for each state. They are calculated relative to Florida, which has an index of 100 due to its top-ranking. Below are the top ten and bottom ten states for ‘Fashion Shoppers’ in U.S., as well as their indexes:

Top States
RankingStateIndex
1.Florida100
2.Louisiana97
3.Oklahoma97
4.New York92
5.North Carolina92
6.Georgia90
7.Alabama89
8.North Dakota88
9.Texas87
10.South Carolina87
Bottom States
RankingStateIndex
41.West Virginia57
42.New Hampshire57
43.New Mexico56
44.Washington54
45.Montana52
46.Alaska50
47.Oregon49
48.Utah45
49.Maine43
50.Vermont41
Fashion Shoppers in the U.S.

A map displaying the relative ‘Fashion Shopper’ indexes of each U.S. state.

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