payments - Retail Systems

RS
46 RS June - July 2012
profile ShopperTrak
On the right Trak
Karen Moss catches up with newly appointed
CEO for Europe at ShopperTrak, Todd Starcevich,
to find out why measuring footfall is more
important for retailers than ever before and
how it can help them boost sales
In a world where data is king retailers are constantly striving
to collect more and more information on their customers.
But with all the complex facial recognition and motion capture
technology available today, is it possible that retailers are forgetting
a simple truth? That they need foot traffic first
and foremost. After all, there’s no point spending cash from
an already squeezed IT budget on expensive new technologies
if your customer base is not there.
The message from ShopperTrak, the world’s largest provider
of retail foot traffic counting, is that companies with a true
idea of how many consumers are crossing their thresholds
across their entire store estate can more accurately plan
everything from marketing and staffing to the location of
new store openings.
CEO for ShopperTrak Europe and the Middle East, Todd
Starcevich, says: “Many customer counting systems being used
by retailers in Europe today simply lack the accuracy they need
to deliver the business insights that retailers expect. The fact
is that monitoring the footfall of each store separately is not
enough. You need to be able to measure footfall across the
entire store estate. Only that way can a retailer truly measure
store performance locally, regionally or nationally.
“If a retailer has two stores in similar locations, serving a
similar customer demographic but those two stores have very
different conversion rates, they need to know that. Being
presented with that information allows them to go and find
out what those two stores are doing differently and make
changes as necessary.”
As many retailers know to their cost, the way people shop
has changed dramatically since the birth of e-commerce and
it has shifted again in the last few years thanks to smart mobile
devices. The advent of online shopping has meant a decrease
in footfall on the High Street, but Todd says this means
understanding your customers and having up-to-date data
is more important than ever.
ShopperTrak, a fully managed solution that provides real-time
traffic data, has managed billions of shopper visits across the
globe for the last 20 years. Because of their longevity their
algorithms can predict when and where people will shop and
how many consumers to expect. Last year they predicted the
week before Christmas would be especially important for retailers,
as five of the top sales and foot traffic days would occur
between 18 and 24 December. ShopperTrak said retailers could
expect consumers walking into their stores that week to have
conducted plenty of online research and would be ready to buy.
Todd says that having one system across many stores means
that retailers can more easily predict and plan for these kinds of
busy periods. “We install and configure the hardware,” he says.
“We then remotely collect traffic and PoS data and format
web-based daily reports for our clients. Using this real-time
information retailers can better plan their staffing schedules
around peak times and their busiest stores. It can also impact
their stock planning, which can be one of the most challenging
areas for retailers – especially in a multi-channel world where
you have Click & Collect or even online delivery orders being
picked from stores. Knowing when their peak traffic times are
means they can ensure their shelves are fully stocked.
“Historical data allows them to see which times of year they
get the most footfall, for example Christmas, so they can
prepare. Reviewing this data can even help retailers assess the
impact or success of marketing strategies. Did a certain offer
get more people through the door? And then, once there, did
that encourage them to buy? Was there an uplift in sales? These
are important questions that every retailer wants to answer.
“When retailers install our system they can often be quite
shocked by the findings we present to them. Many had no idea
so many people were entering their stores without making
purchases. But we like to think that through discovering the
problem retailers will have the chance to improve conversion.”
ShopperTrak counts people, analyses data, and reveals total
sales opportunities for retailers and mall owners, worldwide.
With over 45,000 managed devices in service and billions of
shopper visits counted annually, they’re the global leader in
people counting and store performance analysis.