Eclipse glasses sales follow the path of totality

Next week the contiguous United States will be treated to its first total solar eclipse since 1979, and understandably,  eclipse frenzy has reached a fever pitch. New data from Slice Intelligence confirms buyers all over the country are getting their hands on protective eyewear to catch a glimpse.

Following the path of this eclipse gives us a pretty good snapshot of where most of the population is stocking up on these cosmic spectacles.  The states with the highest per capita spend on the protective lenses almost all lie within the ominously named “path of totality” with Oregon and South Carolina, the first and last states to view this eclipse, among the leaders in that pack.

While eclipse excitement is difficult to quantify, one proxy is eclipse glasses sales, which grew at a rate of 52 percent week over week since the beginning of Summer. In fact, 48 percent of all eclipse glasses sales were sold in the first 10 days of August, and sales have yet to level off.

Generation X--the group to most likely have children in the house--eclipses the other buyer demographics, comprising 40 percent of all sales. Baby boomers aren’t far behind with 32 percent, with millennials rounding out the group at 23 percent of sales. Buyers skew slightly female, as 56 percent of buyers are female.  The average price paid for the glasses is around $20, though prices have declined since the start of Summer. In August, the average price was $15.

With a panel of 5 million online shoppers, Slice Intelligence gives the most detailed, and accurate digital commerce data available, and is reported daily.

Slice Intelligence is the only service to measure digital commerce directly from the consumer, across all retailers, at the item level, and over time. Our retailer-independent methodology precisely measures commerce as it happens. By extracting detailed information from hundreds of millions of aggregated and anonymized e-receipts, Slice can map the entire Purchase Graph, connecting each and every consumer to all their purchases.

Slice gets its data from e-receipts – not a browser, app or software installed by the end-user – so its measurement reflects comprehensive shopping behavior across multiple devices, over time which are key in an increasingly omnichannel retail world. Slice Intelligence is the exclusive e-commerce data provider for the NPD’s Checkout Tracking e-commerce service.