Small businesses have limited resources that cause them to be selective about technologies to use in the retail business. Many consider inventory and POS systems important, but very few focus on people counting technology.
People counters have been around for decades, but many entrepreneurs still fail to realize the importance of the data they provide. Although they can help retailers of any size, the value they offer small businesses is higher than most, especially for companies without the capacity to analyze data from various locations or channels.
Still unsure about what advantages footfall counters can give your retail business? Here are five benefits you should keep in mind:
- Source of insight on consumer behavior
Understanding customers need not be expensive and time-consuming. With the help of people counters, you can learn more about how they behave and why they do what they do.
Even a simple door counter placed at the main entrance of your store will tell you how many customers visit during specific days of the week. If it’s a more innovative system, it may even tell you what your store’s peak times are.
By analyzing the data that footfall counters provide, you can look at your business from your customers’ perspective.
For example, you might discover that your store tends to have steady traffic on weekdays but gets a spike in the number of visitors on weekends. With this information, you can make the necessary changes to your daily operations, like your operating hours or staff assignments.
- Data-gathering method for better sales and conversions
With people counting technology, retailers can also determine how many visitors have converted into paying customers and how many sales opportunities they have lost throughout a given period.
Because of the information gathered from footfall and video counters, you can gather enough checkout data to know how many shoppers abandoned their carts. This will allow you to come up with informed ways to prevent the same thing from occurring again in the future.
If you get low conversion numbers, you can take the information and figure out if the issue has something to do with poor customer service, long checkout queues, or subpar product arrangement or pricing.
From there, determine which of the following will best address the issue:
- Focusing more on merchandising selections.
- Improving price range.
- Changing up the store layout.
- Enhancing customer service and engagement.
- Staff scheduling and management guide
When it comes to in-store staff, one of the biggest challenges retail managers and small business owners face is balancing the number of people working at any given time.
Having too many or too few people ready to assist customers at a specific time could be detrimental to sales, conversion, and revenue. If you’re having a hard time managing your workforce schedules, you may find the data from footfall counters helpful.
Since you can determine the busiest hours of the day and high-traffic days of the week, you can assign just enough people to ensure that all your customers are assisted and happy during their visit.
Alternatively, you may reduce the number of staff working during low-traffic times to ensure efficient use of your resources.
- Tool for measuring and enhancing marketing efforts
If you’re investing in marketing campaigns like TV, radio, print, or online advertisements, you’ll want to know whether your efforts are paying off.
Traditionally, the sales figure a retail store gets by the end of the campaign is the primary measure of marketing success. However, modern people counting solutions can now provide entrepreneurs with a better understanding of how customers perceive the marketing campaigns.
With a cross-reference between sales figures and store traffic data from people counters, you can know whether a TV jingle brings more people into the store, even without making a purchase, among other things.
In fact, even without multimedia exposure, you can use door counters to determine whether your window display effectively attracts people to your establishment. After all, window displays serve as the fundamental marketing tool for brick-and-mortar businesses.
Once you figure out what display style draws people to your shop, you can do more of that and ensure that they remain interested in your business.
- Business trend identifier
Besides counting daily visitors, footfall or people counters also serve as a crucial tool in identifying trends that affect your business in the short, medium, and long term.
The more extensive the coverage of the traffic data you have, the better you’ll be able to determine the factors that affect your business and come up with ways to adapt to them.
For example, you may get fewer visitors within a week of inclement weather. In this case, you can choose to hold an online sale to offset any loss your store may have incurred during those seven days.
On the other hand, if a special event in town brings more customers to your shop every year, you might want to boost your marketing efforts ahead of the event window to maximize your profits during this limited-time traffic boost.
Count People to Grow in Retail
People counting provides valuable data that helps increase sales and boosts the rate of business growth. Use this technology to your advantage and watch your store grow.
