Using Visa debit and credit card transactions in the U.S. from 2016 to 2019, we document the importance of customers in accounting for sales variation across merchants, across stores within retail chains, and over time for individual merchants and stores. Customers, as opposed to transactions...

Despite extensive research on retailers’ price responses to demand shocks, much less is known about their non-price adjustments. Using heterogeneity in timing, location, and magnitude of income/wealth shocks associated with the 2008 Great Recession, we explore how U.S. retail stores adjusted...