• Sensormatic Solutions accurately predicted nine out of ten busiest days in the U.S. and five out of five busiest days in Canada
• Shopper traffic data indicates that visits to physical stores for the 2021 holiday season accounted for 35.8% of the total season’s brick-and-mortar traffic
• Supply chain disruptions shifted shopping earlier in the season, with fewer consumers saving their shopping for the last minute

Sensormatic Solutions, the leading global retail solutions portfolio of Johnson Controls, today released its annual traffic and behavior trends recap for the 2021 holiday season for the U.S. and Canada. This includes the period of six weeks spanning from the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 21, 2021, through Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022. The annual recap is informed by retail traffic data analytics within the company’s intelligent operating platform, Sensormatic IQ.

The final shopper traffic data showed that Sensormatic Solutions initial prediction of the top busiest shopper traffic days in the U.S. aligned with the actual busiest days in stores. Sensormatic Solutions also originally predicted that the 10 busiest shopping days in the U.S. would account for approximately 40% of all holiday traffic. Altogether, the actual 2021 busiest shopping days accounted for 35.8% of the total season’s brick-and-mortar traffic.

Traffic for the full six-week period was down -19.5% in the U.S., compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. This is an improvement from 2020 when holiday traffic was down -33.1% compared to 2019.

“Although this was the second holiday season impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer shopping habits looked different than in years past, including 2020,” said Brian Field, senior director of global retail consulting, Sensormatic Solutions. “Despite ongoing concerns about the virus, our traffic data made it clear that consumers were more willing to return to stores this year. However, with ongoing supply chain disruptions and product shortages, we saw a noticeable shift in consumers who shopped earlier in the season. In the month of November, traffic was only down -18.1% compared to 2019, indicating slightly fewer consumers who left their shopping until the last few days as they had in years past.”

U.S. Results

“Though it did not make our initial list, we felt that the Monday leading into Christmas would be a strong day for in-store shopping and were not surprised when it overtook Sunday, December 26 for a place on the list of top ten busiest days in the U.S.,” said Field. “Unlike prior holiday seasons in the U.S., none of the days following Christmas were among the top ten busiest in 2021.”

Canada Results

Sensormatic Solutions predictions for the busiest shopping days in Canada also closely aligned with the actual busiest days in-store.

Additional information on the 2021 holiday season is available here:

• Top Busiest Days
• Holiday Consumer Survey Results
• Thanksgiving and Black Friday Data
• Black Friday Weekend and Cyber Monday Data
• Super Saturday Data

Sensormatic Solutions and its intelligent operating platform for retail, Sensormatic IQ, is a vital component of Johnson Controls OpenBlue technologies and innovations which promotes healthy people, healthy places and healthy planet. Sensormatic Solutions is helping retailers solve complex challenges related to consumer confidence, health and safety as part of its mission.

For more Sensormatic Solutions holiday insights, follow along on LinkedIn and Twitter, using #SensormaticHolidays2021.

About Johnson Controls

At Johnson Controls (NYSE:JCI) we transform the environments where people live, work, learn and play. As the global leader in smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, our mission is to reimagine the performance of buildings to serve people, places and the planet.

With a history of more than 135 years of innovation, Johnson Controls delivers the blueprint of the future for industries such as healthcare, schools, data centers, airports, stadiums, manufacturing and beyond through its comprehensive digital offering OpenBlue. With a global team of 100,000 experts in more than 150 countries, Johnson Controls offers the world's largest portfolio of building technology, software as well as service solutions with some of the most trusted names in the industry. For more information, visit www.johnsoncontrols.com or follow us @johnsoncontrols on Twitter.

About Sensormatic Solutions

Sensormatic Solutions is the leading global retail solutions portfolio of Johnson Controls powering operational excellence at scale and enabling smart and connected shopper engagement. Our intelligent digital operating platform – Sensormatic IQ – combines the full Sensormatic Solutions portfolio, including third-party data to deliver unmatched insights into shopper experience, inventory intelligence, loss prevention and operational effectiveness with advanced technologies, like AI and Machine Learning. This enables retailers to act on prescriptive and predictive data-driven outcomes to confidently move into the future. Please visit Sensormatic Solutions or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and our YouTube channel.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220105005824/en/