Retail Technology: Why People Counters Alone Are Not Enough

2 min read
Jun 18, 2018

retail-analytics

Optimising sales opportunities is crucial to the success of any retail business. Traditional people counters have a significant role to play in enabling this by gathering data on customers in the store.

However, a changing retail environment now means that basic people counting technology often isn’t enough to deliver the competitive advantage and opportunities for sales and growth that really enable a business to excel.

The evolution of people counters

Retailers today need to know more than just how many customers are in stores. The most basic people counters can offer up insights into customer numbers and some can also provide rudimentary demographic estimates, such as age.

However, this is no longer enough to deliver the level of detail that is required for real, actionable insights – and that’s why people counters have evolved.

What is Dwell Time?

Essentially, it is the amount of time that a customer spends in a store. Multiple reports have established that where retailers are able to increase dwell time this can have a positive impact on sales. A report by Path Intelligence indicated that if you can increase dwell time by just 1%, you will see a 1.3% increase in sales.

There are many different ways to increase dwell time, from targeting product sales to better customer service, but the first step to being able to improve it is to measure it.

Time of Flight technology enables a retailer to detect, track, and measure the people that move underneath its sensors to help create insights that can be used to measure and improve dwell time. The technology uses pulses of invisible infrared light, which bounce back from surfaces to the sensor. The time taken for the bounce back provides data, such as how far away an object is and how high (or tall).

Why Irisys Vector 4D?

Irisys Vector 4D is the evolution of people counting that the retail industry has been waiting for. It is the most advanced people counter in the world, combining new Time of Flight detection technology with Irisys' proprietary algorithms to deliver potentially transformative business insights. In particular it can be used to:

  • Measure footfall and dwell times
  • Generate demographic data on customers
  • Gain insight into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and customer service
  • Use height measurement technology for more accurate people counting
  • Integrate with other thermal and 4D products

Irisys Vector 4D provides a truly accurate picture of customer numbers that can be used to calculate conversion rates, improve store performance and measure the impact of marketing campaigns and other business metrics. With this insight, retailers can make better informed decisions to drive greater growth.

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