Traffic. It’s what almost all retailers swore by — that, and time spent in stores. The logic was simple: Get people through the doors and entice them to linger longer, and they’d buy your wares. All that came into question when Covid-19 hit. Even after the shutdowns were lifted, retailers found themselves facing a new reality: Traffic looked (and still looks) nothing like it did the year prior.

Almost overnight, consumers were utilising convenient services such as buy...