Foot traffic is one of the most valuable and essential resources available to business owners, but accurate measurements are vital to the success of any retail industry, the more customers who come into your store, the more sales you can expect. Furthermore, meeting customers in person provides a unique opportunity to establish rapport and earn their loyalty.
The first step in order to increase your retail store foot traffic is to measure it. Only by measuring and tracking foot and visitors traffic over time can you determine how seasonality or your most recent marketing activities influence the number of foot traffic your store receives. Not to mention that Increasing customer traffic is also a constant challenge.
What Is Foot Traffic?
Foot traffic is the number of people who walk into or around a specific area at a given time. It is a metric that business owners and retail store owners use to assess or measure the effectiveness and value of a commercial facility.
Before opening a shop or establishing a store, research groups assess the area’s foot traffic to determine whether the location is profitable.
They also measure foot traffic during peak hours to determine when the most foot traffic occurs during the day or week. This helps determine whether shoppers will be able to buy specific items and how much foot traffic affects sales.
The importance of measuring visitors traffic and foot traffic
Foot traffic provides valuable insights that allow you to make informed decisions when running your store. For example, based on sales and foot traffic data, you can understand your store’s busiest hours and days and plan your staff schedules accordingly. You can also gain a better understanding of how factors such as weather and marketing campaigns affect foot traffic.
You can also calculate your retail store conversion rate by comparing foot traffic to total sales to see if your staff is converting opportunities into sales.
Foot traffic data collected and analysed over time allows you to identify patterns, measure store performance, and be more cost-effective with staff scheduling and marketing initiatives. Here are some of the advantages of tracking:
– Gain customer behaviour insights
– Optimise staffing
– Improve product placement
– Smarter sales and marketing strategies
– Evaluate business expansion opportunities
– Understand external factors
What Is the Importance of Foot Traffic Data in Different Industries?
As previously stated, virtually any business with a physical location can use a people counting system to track foot traffic. However, depending on the type of business, the use cases for foot traffic solutions may differ. Let’s look at how some businesses can benefit from foot traffic data.
Retailers: Retailers can use foot traffic and conversion rate data to improve marketing efficiency, increase customer visits, and increase sales.
Passenger foot traffic can help transportation mobility providers improve their services and plan future transportation initiatives strategically.
Shopping mall foot traffic can have a significant impact on the profits of stores located within the mall. Understanding average mall foot traffic can help improve advertising, determine rent, and increase profits.
Tracking airport foot traffic from security checks to embarkation allows for more efficient operations, better staff allocation, and more passenger time at Duty-Free shops.
How can you start measuring foot traffic?
Figuring out how to calculate foot traffic is a common problem for retail stores. What you want to achieve with the data collected determines how you measure foot traffic. The good news is that there are numerous excellent tools available to assist in calculating foot traffic and collecting information about customers who visit your physical locations. To measure foot traffic, you don’t have to resort to manual counting and stand at the door manually counting everyone who comes in.
People counters and traffic tracking software can detect and measure foot traffic in your store in real-time. Setting up automated people counting hardware and software for the counting process allows for more accurate data and conversion rates while also freeing up your staff, instead of standing at the door manually counting incoming visitors for more customer-centric tasks.
It can be difficult to accurately measure foot traffic. It is, however, an important one because the results influence decisions about business locations and in-store optimization. Foot traffic tracking methods range from simple approaches to sophisticated location analytics systems.
- Manual Techniques:
Manual methods include manually counting the number of people passing through a specific area using a clicker or monitoring camera footage. Some stores use automatic door counters, which take less time and produce comparable results.
While these tracking methods are low-cost, they can be time-consuming, inaccurate, and provide limited insight because the data does not include demographic or behavioural indicators.
- Web-based Tracking Techniques:
Estimates of a specific store location’s foot traffic can also be obtained through web-based platforms that collect data from opted-in location-sharing mobile devices, such as Google, which uses GPS data to estimate a store location’s foot traffic throughout the day.
You can also look into location intelligence software, which collects data from various sources, such as cellular and mobile networks, to provide insights about any location.
- Analytics Systems for Location:
Another method of assessing foot traffic is to use more comprehensive location analytics systems, which frequently use a combination of hardware and software to collect and process large amounts of data. These systems generate data-rich results that provide valuable insights into customer behaviour and are used for in-store optimization and the development of marketing strategies.
What can I do to increase foot traffic?
- Maintain a visually appealing storefront.
- Highlight special in-store events.
- Promote special deals for in-store purchases.
- Provide free in-store pickup.
- Update product selections and displays on a regular basis.
Identifying pedestrian cycles provides you with the data you need to improve your operations. Whatever your industry, there will be a use for measuring traffic in the area. Learn the best way to set up a people counting software and hardware solution for your business if you want to assess the habits of those walking in your building.
