Sprouts’ traffic takes sudden hit, but the grocer has a plan

Sprouts is taking a hard look at reducing prices and is currently conducting a series of tests in stores across the country. Shutterstock

Sprouts Farmers Market’s loyalty program might be reaching full speed at just the right time because during the first quarter of 2026, the retailer experienced a traffic problem.

Overall visits increased modestly at 1.8% year over year, according to the latest data from Placer.ai, but this comes after Sprouts showed a 6.3% increase in the fourth quarter of 2025. Same-store visits are where the problem persists. Placer.ai data shows average visits per location dropped 6.2% year over year in the first quarter. Visits have dropped more with each month this year, from 3% in January to 6% in March.

Several factors come into play—continued inflation and rising fuel costs are two—but Sprouts Farmers Market is turning to the data from its loyalty program, which began late last year, to try to gain some intelligence and bring people back to the store. The key is personalizing the data the loyalty program generates.

Curtis Valentine, chief financial officer of Sprouts, said during the earnings call last week that traffic numbers show slight improvement early in the second quarter.

“There are still continued tailwinds in terms of this health and wellness and clean ingredients,” Sprouts CEO Jack Sinclair said during the first-quarter earnings call, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense. “The marketplace is trending toward that, and there’s clearly some macroeconomic dynamics that play into it. But that underlying trend that’s been with us for several years—we think we’re really well-placed to take advantage of that.”

Sprouts is also taking a hard look at reducing prices and is currently conducting a series of tests in stores across the country.

“We’re being very selective by category, and we’re doing some specific tests across different geographies,” Sinclair said.

Nicholas Konat, president and chief operating officer at Sprouts, said during the earnings call that the pricing focus is twofold: To try to put a few more items in the basket and to get the core customer back in the store more often.

Sprouts recently launched new parfaits, a $5 sandwich and $5 sushi, and wellness bowls are also selling well for the retailer. Deli traffic is one area where traffic has increased.

Sinclair said during the earnings call that when the company drops prices, volumes increase, and elasticity is essential to the price-cut strategy.

“It’s all about comparing ourselves to our customer and what they do, as opposed to comparing our prices to other people,” Sinclair said.

Customer data has also shown the need for targeted promotions at the broader category level and subcategory level.

“We’ve seen really good uptake in unit lift and sales dollar lift that we’ve seen good response to,” Konat said.

Konat said early tests and efforts currently in place have shown the retailer’s ability to move the customer, drive awareness and move traffic.

“Our customer marketing team is using the data to help us think about how we adjust our brand message and media to be more relevant to the customer right now—where they are in the space,” he said.