Best Retail Traffic Counters for In-Store Customer Journey

If you operate a retail store, you understand the importance of customer counting. It’s the foundational data point to so many performance metrics. But once you begin the search for the best retail traffic counters, it can be overwhelming to sift through different types of technologies and software offerings.

We suggest narrowing your search down to video-based hardware. This type of sensing has surpassed thermal imaging, thru-beam, and passive infrared people counting technologies of the past.

An optimal retail traffic counting solution is not only reliable, but can fully automate the process of collecting and analyzing the data. Intelligent sensors are connected to your network to deliver foot traffic data to a cloud-based reporting platform which in-turn converts the raw data into meaningful reports and visualizations. Should you already have an enterprise business software in place, pulling data from a people counting software’s API may be the best route for data analysis and reporting.

Best Retail Traffic Counters for Threshold Counting

At SenSource, we genuinely thrive on finding the best fit system for our clients’ varying applications. We work with retailers from every sector, from grocery to fashion, and of every size, from a single boutique store to a 1,000-store chain.

For many applications, the best retail traffic counter is one that excels at threshold counting – identifying and counting each person who enters and exits a doorway.

Armed with threshold count data, retailers can identify:

• peak and slow traffic times
• patterns throughout the day and days of the week
• historical comparisons such as today compared to same day last week
• forecast traffic

Pairing door traffic with your point-of-sale data allows for even deeper analysis of store performance. Conversion rate is the golden metric for any retailer – to know how many shoppers converted into purchasers. In addition, traffic and POS data reveals dollar-per-head, or the average value of each opportunity (shopper) who enters your store.

Best Retail Traffic Counters for In-Store Customer Journey

Beyond the threshold lies opportunity for enhanced customer journey metrics for a deeper understanding of how customers interact with your store. The same retail traffic counters used at the door can be installed throughout a store to track customers’ complete paths.

When SenSource installs counters at a store, our technical support department calibrates each unit, honing in the accuracy by using count-lines, exclude zones, and drawing boxes around departments or areas of interest. Not only does it increase accuracy, it also enables zone counting for the retailer to uncover how many people visited a specific area and the average length of time spent.

Key metrics revealed using in-store customer journey include:

• visit duration
• activity paths
• zone visits
• purchasers
• zone draw rate
• store draw-in rate

Data may reveal a fashion retailer’s most visited area is handbags, but the area customers dwell the longest is the shoe department. However, the most common path taken is “belts, phone accessories, handbags, shoes”. This information helps plan store layout. If most shoppers are looking for handbags, perhaps put them towards the front of the store to draw a higher turn-in rate. And if customers are spending the most time in the shoe department, perhaps additional staff needs assigned to this area to optimize the customer experience.

Ready to see the best retail traffic counters in action? We host live group demos twice a week and would love to show you how our sensors and software work as well as answer any questions you may have!