The Benefits of People Counting for Retail Store Management

Suppose your retail store had a big sales weekend and many customers came through your aisles. You don’t know how many people actually came through your store, however, and expected big revenue only to find out there was just a slight uptick in sales. 

What went wrong? Why did you fail to convert so many customers?

Well, it’s incredibly difficult to diagnose the problem if you don’t have an accurate picture of traffic, which aisles and displays attract the most attention, and which ones are being ignored.

To address this challenge, retailers are turning to automated people-counting technology to more accurately monitor foot traffic and conversion rates, reduce labor costs, enhance customer experience, and remain fire code compliant.  

How Does a People Counting System Work?

A people counting system measures and analyzes the number of people entering, exiting, or staying in your store, down to the exact aisle or section. This intelligent technology typically consists of two main components: video cameras that detect the presence of shoppers and a software application that analyzes collected data. Infrared beams, heat mapping, video analytics, Wi-Fi tracking, and Bluetooth beacons are frequently used to detect people and their movements. 

The software application can be cloud-based or installed on a local server, and provides various metrics and insights regarding crowd gathering, occupancy limits, queue monitoring, foot traffic, and conversation rate.

With this data on hand, you can make informed decisions to improve the customer experience and grow your business. 

People Counting Converts More Customers

People counting helps your retail business measure and improve its conversion rates by providing accurate and reliable data on how many visitors enter and exit your store, the duration of their stay, and the percentage that make a purchase.

With this technology, you can track and analyze conversion rates over time (and across different locations) and in relation to various factors, such as store layout, product placement, pricing, promotions, and customer service. Not only does this help you gain a more accurate picture of what’s happening inside your store, but it will help identify the strengths and weaknesses of your operation, test and evaluate different strategies, and implement changes that can increase sales and revenue.

For example, you can use people counting data to see how a new store layout affects your conversion rate, or how a seasonal promotion influences the foot traffic and sales performance. You’ll also be able to benchmark conversion rates against competitors and industry standards.

Plus, people counting data helps set realistic and achievable goals for improvement. After all, you don’t know if you’re growing and getting better, if you can’t track progress. 

People counting data helps set realistic and achievable goals for improvement.

People Counting Reduces Labor Cost & Enhances Customer Experience

Since people counting provides a data-rich assessment of your customer experience, you can easily optimize staff scheduling, potentially leading to reduced labor costs.

You can monitor foot traffic and peak hours and adjust staff levels accordingly. This ensures you have enough staff to serve customers during busy periods, and avoid overstaffing during traffic lulls.

Here are some other benefits of deploying a customer counting system:

Reduce customer wait times. Having enough staff to handle customer demand shrinks wait times at the checkout, fitting rooms, or service counters, and improves your customer’s overall experience.

Improve service quality. When you have just the right amount of staff to assist customers, you improve not only the service quality and professionalism but increase customer engagement and loyalty. If customers are going to shop in a brick-and-mortar store (rather than online), then you’d better curate a memorable experience for them.

Increases employee productivity and morale. Burnout is a very common concern among professionals right now. If you can enhance your store’s productivity and efficiency while curtailing the times when employees are overburdened, you should be able to dramatically reduce employee stress.

Slash labor costs. When the number of staff matches foot traffic, you can reduce labor costs and wastage, improving store profitability and performance. 

Automated People Counting Helps Retailers Remain Fire Code Compliant

Your business has a legal and moral obligation to abide by local fire codes and regulations. Failing to comply with them can result in severe fines, a tarnished reputation, increased fire risks, legal repercussions and liability issues, and the loss of both life (those of your customers and employees) and property. 

You absolutely don’t want to deal with the fallout that comes from failing to comply with fire code regulations. And people counting is central to compliance.

While people counting can be performed manually, this route is comparatively more cost and labor-intensive and lacks the analytic power that comes with an automated system. 

Relying on video cameras and the same system that conducts people counting can also track occupancy levels in your building. It’s not only more cost-effective than manual methods, but more accurate as well, removing human error from the equation. 

You can also set up triggers with specific criteria, such as the number of people in a particular area or room. For instance, if you’ve established a rule in your people counting system to notify you when a certain threshold is crossed, then you can look in in real time and see exactly what is going on via the video system—keeping your store fire code compliant. 

While these types of devices have traditionally been very expensive. Alarm.com video and business activity analytics have made it affordable for almost any business. In fact, your store can’t afford not to have it.

So, whether you want to better track foot traffic and occupancy levels, reduce labor costs, enhance the customer experience, or identify weak points in your store layout, people-counting technology amplifies your ability to understand what’s going on in your store. And, at the end of the day, that’s going to increase your conversion rate and sales revenue. 

General Security provides people counting and occupancy monitoring systems powered by advanced analytics to boost your business operations and keep your retail business fire code compliant. Request a free quote today!