No. 1 · Retail
Walmart wins the weekly run. Target wins the weekend.
Over half of Target's shoppers also shop at Walmart. The split isn't who walks in the door. It's which trip each store gets.
Data stories · data-driven articles
Questions, answered with data
Data-driven articles about how Americans shop, built from card-spending and phone-visit panels. Each finding is tied to its source and method.
55%
of Target shoppers also buy at Walmart
+15%
more Home Depot visits, matched by state
Top 4%
of 1,720 chains for early-morning traffic
~90,000
U.S. gyms mapped by card and phone data
30.8%
of gas-station baskets are fuel and nothing else
−16%
NC city grocery stores vs similar stores, 2021 vs 2019
Stories
No. 2 · Retail
Within the same county, Home Depot and Lowe's shoppers look alike
Nationally their crowds diverge. Compare shoppers in the same county and most of that gap disappears. Home Depot still wins more trips.
No. 3 · Retail
Dunkin' peaks at 9 a.m. Starbucks peaks at noon. What does that say about their customers?
A cheaper weekday routine and a weekend treat on different clocks, and a payment system that makes card counts an incomplete picture of the coffee run.
No. 4 · Fitness
Where America Works Out
The American gym landscape by card and phone data: where gyms cluster, which brands are opening and closing, what members pay, and when the rush actually happens.
No. 5 · Convenience stores
The gas-station run keeps its own clock
A clustering study of convenience-store receipts. Sorted only by what sold, the day splits into three runs, and nearly a third of baskets are fuel alone.
No. 6 · Food access · North Carolina
Groceries left the city, and didn't come back
From 2019 to 2021, city grocery stores in North Carolina lost about a sixth of their footing against similar stores while rural stores gained a third. Phone visits and card spending agree, and the gap has not closed.
Working papers
Working paper · North Carolina food access
Where North Carolina buys groceries
A state-of-affairs report from phone visits, card spending and census data: coverage and bias, where people shop, who shops where, supermarkets vs dollar stores, COVID and Hurricane Helene, and what it means for food-access research.