Geocaching growth is not 'sticky'

Australian statistics, which may be comparable to North American statistics

From Reddit: How is the popularity for geocaching?

[–]TassieTigerGeocaching Australia Dev/Admin (CraigRat) 7 points 3 months ago* 

It's grown, in theory...... but based on data from my country there is a huge amount of people who come in, find a handful and go away. We are talking the majority. It looks bigger, but Geocaching on a percentage basis isn't retaining players in the numbers it used to.

Most players find less than ten caches before losing interest.

I'll try to find the analysis I did. It was quite an eye opener.

[EDIT] Found it:

Out of 110497 people who have logged caches in Australia since 2000, 3/4 of them (82,000) have only ever found 17 caches or less!

3/4 of all people who've cached in Australia stopped logging caches at or before 224 days! 1/2 of them (55,000 or so) stopped caching within 2 weeks!

Growth of new cachers is pretty spectacular with 32000+ new players in 2014, however the longevity of most is still quite low: 3/4 of those people found < 9 caches and logged for only one month (approx)

It would seem that geocaching, although increasing in numbers does have any real significant 'stickyness'.

The moral of this story: Embrace the new players, but don't bother to remember their names, they won't be around for long (statistically)

You might think it's growing, you ARE seeing more new names in the logs, but they ain't sticking around!

If I made my business selling premium memberships I'd be fair shitting myself.

http://imgur.com/6RFhKES

http://imgur.com/3om0GAf

http://imgur.com/M5AXELN

http://imgur.com/J8mmplR

http://imgur.com/hnrskQv

http://imgur.com/mqN080E

New cachers

3rd Quartile Caches Found vs Year Started

3rd Quartile Days Cached

Average caches found per cacher vs year started

Cemetery Tour Spring 2016 Mid-Eastern Ontario

A so-so cemetery geocaching spring vacation this year.

The best cemetery cache hider was coman123. I found 4 of his cemetery caches. They were in good shape, swag size, in good locations and interesting finds. Most of his puzzles were easy and straight forward.

Unfortunately my first day was spent finding mostly Dragonflyexpress cemetery caches. All of them neglected by the cache owner. Many missing. Many in bad shape. All leaky free or $1 containers - film canisters, magnetic key holders, dollar store containers. It soured the day's experience and set a mood for the rest of my geocaching vacation.

On day 1, there was one cemetery geocache, by Staygold678. I found it at the end of the day, it was a relief from the carpy containers.  This one was an authentic Lock & Lock; a classic hollow nook in a tree hide; it was great shape; it had a logbook - not a damp moldy sheet. I gave it a favourite point.

Most of the other Prince Edward County, Hastings, and Lennox Addington county cemetery caches were either missing or in bad shape. Most were micros. Almost all of them looked like they had been planted then never visited again by their owners.  It felt like hiders were carrying a sackful of micros and plunking one down any time they passed a cemetery.

I posted a lot of DNFs and NMs and a few NAs.

I left a day earlier then planned and headed back home. The geocaching experience in the area wasn't worth the extra day hotel room cost, gas and food expenses.