Traffic Up; Conversion Down?

How do retailers measure the affects of advertising promotions? One obvious metric is sales. Has the store sold more stuff during the promotion? 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 campaign 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 footfall figures, no-one knows whether an increase in sales is an indication of a job well done or of opportunities lost.

A video counting system doesn’t just accurately monitor footfall and report real-time sales conversion figures, it also gives information on the length of time people stand waiting in a queue, how many left that queue and how long they spend overall in the shop. A whole raft of retail analytics to help stores realise their potential.

For more information contact Retail Sensing.