Retail traffic counter reveals shopper behaviour.

 

 

Using CCTV cameras and intelligent counting units, our retail traffic counters give unrivalled 98% accurate data for business decisions.

 

 

• Monitor customer conversion rates: how many people enter the store but don't make a purchase?

• Count passers-by: how many people pass by but don't enter your store?

• Track the path people take through the store.

• See the length of time people pause at displays and kiosks.

• Monitor queuing and dwell times.

• Integrate with point-of-sale database in real-time.

• Measure advertising success.

• Count people (footfall) per department, per store and for whole retail chain: identify the best and worst performing stores.

• Efficiently allocate staff.

• Counts shown per hour, per half-hour, per day: however you like down to 5 minute intervals.

• Be confident of count accuracy by viewing the video and monitoring counts.

 

 

 

Integrating Footfall Counts with Point-of-Sale Data

 

Retailers can integrate footfall counts with Point-of-Sale (POS) databases in real-time.

 

At regular intervals - as little as every 5 minutes if necessary - footfall counts are transferred from the people counters to a central POS system.

 

The people counts can thus be incorporated into graphical and mapping software showing real-time footfall and conversion rates alongside point-of-sale figures.

 

The information can then be distributed as needed.

 

One retail chain, for example, sends data back from headquarters to store managers' PCs every 15 minutes.

 

Meauring Advertising Success

 

How do you measure the affects of advertising campaigns?

 

One obvious metric is sales.

 

Has the store sold more products during the campaign? But more sales are only an indirect measurement of advertising success. What if more people entered the store because of the advertising, but less of them bought anything - is that a success or a failure? And what are the reasons for the decrease in sales conversion?

 

It may be, of course, that the advertising attracted browsers but not prospective customers. It's more likely though that sales conversion was down because of other factors: staffing levels, running out of stock, long queues...Managers can make educated guesses but only by measuring footfall can retailers accurately assess marketing success.

 

Without the retail traffic figures, no-one knows whether an increase in sales is an indication of a job well done or of opportunities lost.

 

 

Identifying poor performing stores

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If retailers rely just on sales figures to compare stores, they miss early warning signs of trouble ahead.

 

When a store is quiet, more of the people who are there tend to buy and the transactions at the till look healthy.

 

However, conversion rates can't improve forever.

 

No matter how good sales assistants are at encouraging people to make a purchase, if the trend of decreasing footfall continues then sales will follow.

 

Retail chains that routinely monitor footfall for their stores are alerted early to possible future sales slumps, and can plan their solutions before profits drop.

 

Declining footfall means declining sales opportunities. Counting people lets managers pre-empt the sales downturn.

 

Efficient Staff Planning 

 

Retail profits depend on attracting people into the store and converting them into customers.

 

There are many factors to converting the store traffic into sales, not least the right products at the right prices.

 

But retailers also need enough staff to ensure a good shopping experience, whether it's by helping people find what they are looking for, providing advice on products, suggesting alternatives or giving a quick check-out.

 

To ensure that the staff are effectively allocated, managers need to know when are their peak shopping times and busiest footfall. A retail traffic counter can show a half-hourly break-down of the counts for the whole day.

 

The counts can be integrated with a workforce management system, making it easy to create better forecasts and staffing schedules.

 

Staffing is generally the second largest expense for retailers.

 

Understanding retail traffic patterns means retailers can identify key selling periods.

 

This lets them allocate appropriate numbers of staff at busy periods, and choose to have their best staff members on the floor at these times. It also means that staff are not employed in secondary activities, such as tidying or re-stocking, at busy times.

 

When shoppers aren't sure what to buy, and don't get helpful advice from retail staff, 90% of them leave empty-handed, according to a recent survey.

 

A people counting system empowers retailers to decide whether cutting staff levels will make them more, or less, profitable

 

 

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