Why even basic Entry Data for Retail Foot Traffic can change the Game

A major challenge in retail and merchandising is how well you can capture, track, and analyze data (Learn more!). Without good data, it’s not possible to grow your retail business profitably. Successful retailers quickly realize that it’s necessary to invest the time into tracking data like promotions, customers, suppliers and more. But investing the time can be a challenge if you’re constantly running from one thing to another.

When looking to kick-start a more data-driven approach, the first place to look is the front-door. While this could be visits to a website for ecommerce retailers, we mean the literal front-door for brick-and-mortar retailers.

Tracking entries into stores has been a long-standing practice for retailers, but entry data can provide much more than just numbers. With a stronger data-driven approach, you can better understand your shoppers and adjust your operations accordingly.

Forming a Baseline - The core benefit of traffic data is calculating and averaging your daily, weekly, and monthly visits. This will be the rock on which you build and measure all changes on.

Recognizing Trends - When monitoring traffic, you’ll not only discover averages but changes in those averages as well, based on both micro- and macro-shifts in your operations and the retail environment. 

Adjusting Staff - With a stronger understanding of average traffic, you can staff accordingly to ensure you’re not over- or under-staffing on any occasion.

Conducting Tests - Making changes to store layouts, marketing efforts, product mixes, and more can all be deemed successful or not successful based on their impact on both your store traffic and changes in sales. 

Managing Resources - Better aligning resources and other expenses like energy with the traffic your store is getting not only saves money but also improves the experience for your shoppers.

Comparing Locations - By tracking entries at multiple stores and locations, you can begin to compare their performance and the effect the changes and tests above had on their traffic.

As we mentioned, door counters and entry trackers have been a staple in retail for years, but with advancements in data capture and reporting, those metrics can now be leveraged to make real bottom-line improvements. 

You can learn more about creating a retail foot traffic data and analytics system for your store in four easy steps.