Analyzing Spending Behavior at Multiple Levels of Granularity

Key Takeaways

  • Consumer spending analysis at the transaction level exposes patterns that brand-wide averages often conceal.
  • Regional and store-level variations show that consumer spending analysis cannot be reliably inferred from national trends alone.
  • Separating spend per transaction from transaction volume reveals distinct drivers behind changes in consumer behavior.
  • Granular consumer spending analysis explains regional outliers that appear anomalous in aggregated reporting.
  • Linking Spend data with POI attributes strengthens location-specific insights and improves interpretation of spending trends.

SafeGraph recently launched Spend data. This dataset contains aggregated and anonymized information on debit credit card transactions by point of interest (POI).

Analyzing Spending Behavior by Brand

Let’s take Walmart as an example and look at data on spend per transaction over the first nine months of 2021. This is all same-store data, using only the Walmarts present in Spend data both in January 2021 and September 2021.

Walmart national spend per transaction, 2021

We can see a few things in this. First, there’s a spike in late March and early April, with spend per transaction jumping from about $36 to about $40, but it’s temporary and we’re back down to $36 by May. Then there seems to be a slow decline, ending up with per-transaction spend values of about $34 by the end of September.

Notably, this is based on spend per transaction. The declining spend per transaction is accompanied by more transactions, to the extent that overall national Walmart spend is up by 8.5% from January to September. This is nearly identical to the Walmart 8.4% same-store growth from January through October reported by the company.

Analyzing Spending Behavior by State

Walmart spend per transaction by state, 2021

North Dakota shows an interesting dip in spend per transaction appearing throughout June that doesn’t seem to be present in other states. Let's explore North Dakota's 14 Walmart locations in the data.

Let’s take a closer look at the individual stores in North Dakota to understand driving factors behind this dip.

Analyzing Spending Behavior by Store Location

We pinpointed three specific locations driving the odd North Dakota behavior. Let’s analyze these stores.

The dips are spread throughout the state, concentrated around Fargo in the southeast. Let’s examine factors influencing the change in spend per transaction.

We see two different stories here. In Wahpeton, the dip seems driven by a drop in actual spend for a short period in July. In Fargo, total spend seems consistent, while overall transactions went up. This indicates the effectiveness of Walmart’s 4th of July sales in Fargo compared to other regions.

Data-Driven Consumer Spending Insights

Detailed consumer spending insights can reveal opportunities often overlooked by analyzing aggregated data. With Spend data, businesses can distinguish spending patterns across various regions or types of locations.