Counting 5.5million people at Westfield Stratford in just two weeks

Business Issue

Westfield's Stratford City is Europe’s largest urban shopping centre. It has 250 shops, 70 bars and restaurants, a cinema, a bowling alley and a casino, and reached £500 million in sales, in its first six months.

Mall operators need vital information to allow them to maximize the operational efficiency and profitability of their assets. Retailers use this data to identify how many people entering their stores turn into paying customers – i.e. their conversion ratio.

Footfall and conversion ratios are key performance indicators, showing how well a retail outlet itself is performing, as well as individual retailers.

Westfield recognised the potential value of such insights in helping to strengthen their operational activities, including the ability to set rental rates, assessing the success of marketing campaigns and aligning staffing levels to customer footfall.

Stratford City was also the “gateway” to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.

Solution

Irisys detectors were installed in 2011 and form the majority of the counting devices making up the overall solution from PFM Footfall Intelligence, Westfield’s chosen partner for the provision of customer flow metrics.

Business Benefits

Their ability to count large volumes of people reliably and accurately was critical. Throughout 2012, Westfield's Stratford City shopping centre used Irisys people counting technology to capture and measure record numbers of visitors.

It recorded 5.5 million visitors alone during the Olympics and a record breaking 47 million visitors for the year; this mindboggling number of shoppers equates to 64,700 full London buses visiting the shopping center during the two weeks of the 2012 Olympics - that’s three-quarters of the UK population!