America's 10 Most Popular Stores

Recession or recovery, good times or bad, Americans like to spend. And what's more, we tend to go back to the same stores time and time again to do it.

Which retailers get our business month in and month out? The top of the heap is dominated by fast food chains, discount retailers and pharmacies, according to Placed Insights, a consumer habits data service provider. Their surveys show that only a few companies are visited by more than one in 10 Americans each month.

Sponsored Links

In the main, the types of businesses that made the list shouldn't surprise anyone. As Placed Insights founder and CEO David Shim noted, "People go to fast food at a high frequency. They don't necessarily go shopping for a sweater every day, but they eat food every day."

The other factor: Sheer size and national presence. You may buy groceries multiple times a month, but no retailer that's solely a grocer made the cut, because even the largest (Kroger) has fewer stores than, for example, Taco Bell, which did make the list.

As of March 2013, these are the most-visited stores in America.


%Gallery-187720%

Methodology: Using figures recently published by Placed Insights, 24/7 Wall St. compiled a list of the most visited stores in America. To assess how profitable and popular these stores were, we also consulted companies' financial statements. Same-store sales growth, systemwide sales growth, and other measures of store performance were provided by research firms RetailSails and Technomic. Stock prices are for the parent company that owns the store.

More from 24/7 Wall St.:
Seven Cars Most Likely to Be Dumped
Ten Cities with the Worst Traffic
Companies That Owe Employees a Raise