When looking into opening a retail store, the location is of utmost importance. You must ensure that you open your store in an area that is filled with your target audience. For example, you won’t open a skateboard shop in a small town like Parys which is known for arts and crafts.

It is also important to ensure that there is enough foot traffic going past your shop when you have finally chosen the general location for your store. It’s all good and well to open a surfboard shop down at the coast but if no one is walking past your store, they won’t know you’re there to begin with.

There are also many other data points that can be gathered by means of foot traffic analysis, providing store owners with important insights that could make or break their business.

What is Foot Traffic Analysis?

Foot traffic analysis gathers data and informs store owners on how people move around a certain location. It forms part of a larger collection of insights known as location intelligence. Foot traffic analysis that is specific to retail will typically measure the number of people walking past a store, how many enter and exit the store, and how much time they spend inside the store.

How Do You Measure Foot Traffic?

Foot traffic can be measured by foot traffic counters such as Truecounts 3D. This is a system that makes use of both Video and Wi-Fi counting to ensure the accuracy of the data gathered. Wi-Fi-based counting is used to monitor the number of people outside of the store as well as how many of those people enter the store. It can also determine the amount of time they spend in your store and how many people return to the store. Video counting on the other hand only measures the number of people entering and exiting the store.

How Do You Use Foot Traffic Data?

Once a system like Truecounts 3D has gathered information on a store’s foot traffic, one can gain insights into customer behaviour, customer demographics, the strength of one’s competitors, and whether one is applying the correct marketing techniques for the store and the products that it sells. One can also make use of foot traffic data prior to opening a retail store in a specific area. By tracking the foot traffic around a potential location and the demographic of the potential customers in that location, one can decide if it is indeed the correct location for a certain brand or store.

To find out more about how foot traffic counting can assist your retail business, contact us at Milestone.