Category: News

The ability to collect and analyze information about your in-store performance is invaluable. Determining the effectiveness of layouts, promotions displays, and your checkout queue can be difficult to capture. Sure, it’s possible to glean sales information from your point of sale system, but it can’t tell you a true conversion rate. How many people entered your store’s queue but left without making a purchase? Are sales down but foot traffic the same? What changed?

The answer to all these questions can be determined with people counting technology.

Step 1: Place People Counting Technology in Queue Entrances.

People counting technology can give you the missing piece of information when you’re analyzing your conversion rate. Placing it at key areas can allow you to assess specific aspects of your store. By placing people counting technology at the entrance to your queue, you’ll be able to see exactly how many people have entered your line with the intention to make a purchase.

Step 2: Combine Data with Sales Data from POS System.

Your point of sales system will be able to provide the other half of the equation—sales data. You’ll be able to determine how many people made a purchase for a given amount of time. Make sure that this time period is consistent with the length of time that your people counting technology has been capturing your queue traffic.

Step 3: Evaluate if you are Losing Business in the Queue.

If you are finding that your people counting technology is capturing more footfall than your POS system is capturing sales, you have a problem with your queue. This information can provide you with a baseline for how your queue is performing. Are lines excessively long? Are they dwindling before customers reach the checkout? As you begin making adjustments to your checkout line, you’ll now be able to compare the conversion rate to that of the original baseline to see if you are improving or not.

Step 4: Brainstorm Solutions to Solve the Problem.

There could potentially be a number of problems that are resulting in your lower-than-expected conversion rate at the queue. Do you have adequate staff to move customers through the line quickly? Using people counting technology in the entrances to your store can provide you with information on how many people are entering your store. If there appears to be high traffic with minimal staffing, you may want to consider optimizing your staffing levels. You’ll then be able to see how increasing the number of customer service representatives influences the conversion rate through your queue.

Maybe you need promotional or engaging signage throughout the line to keep customers interested. You can then measure if these promotions encourage people to complete their transaction.

You may not realize that your store has an issue with its queue until the appropriate data can be collected from people counting technology and then compared with your sales data. Operating in blissful ignorance is no way to run a successful store. Customers who enter your queue are interested in your product and want to make a purchase. Don’t let them slip away because you didn’t realize your queue was under performing.

Traf-Sys Inc. supplies people counting solutions to major jewelry retailers such as Pandora and Alex+Ani, and was featured on InStoreMag.com this month in an article about customer counting. InStore is a print and online magazine featuring the latest news, stories and tips in the retail industry. Written by Josh Wimmer, the article discusses different models of traffic counters and the benefits they can bring to retailers.

The article suggests that people counting systems are more cost efficient than just using traditional point of sale systems, as they are less expensive and provide more informed sales insight. However, as with most technology, the more you pay the better the quality of your customer counting system.

“The least expensive counters require you to walk over and manually write down the counts,” Chris Wadsworth, Traf-Sys Inc.’s President noted in the article. “A lot of stores see value in spending a bit more for an automated system that transmits counts to their computer wirelessly.”

Wadsworth recognizes that aspect of his clients’ needs. Traf-Sys traffic counters offer seamless integration with retail point of sale systems.

In addition to costs, Wadsworth also offered InStore readers advice on counter models. He explained that entrance layouts play a part in choosing the right counter for a retail store.

“What type of counter you use depends on how many entrances you have and how wide they are,” he said. “If you have a wide entrance, more than one person can walk through at a time, which throws off your count with some of the technologies.”

The article highlighted the Traf-Sys IP Thermal Sensor, explaining that it can be tailored to each retailer’s unique entrance for optimum accuracy. Wimmer mentioned that it can be combined with other sensors for wider areas. Traf-Sys also offers video, dual view, horizontal, bidirectional and unidirectional people counters in order for retailers to choose the correct hardware for their entrance.

Wimmer showcased Brian Toone of the Jewelry Design Center in Washington, who installed an infrared beam – like Traf-Sys’s IP-Connnected, Dual View and Wireless Thermal Sensor options – over the front entrance of his store. This allows him to receive deliveries through his employee-only entrance in the back of the store without interfering with his traffic count.

“It helps you plan vacation time,” Toone said of his infrared people counter. “It helps you see how effective your staffing is. It’s also nice for parties; it gives you a count. RSVPs are never very accurate.”