Track Store Traffic Patterns By using smart analytics to monitor customers' free Wi-Fi activity, you can get a sense of what marketers call "dwell time." This is where store operators use traffic analytics (often proprietary to specific network monitoring or WiFi marketing tools) to see how long customers linger in a certain section of a store. For example, if you have an end cap display of skin cream at the end of an aisle, you can gain data on whether customers purchased skin cream after they linger in that area.This data helps you evaluate the effectiveness of store displays. You can also compare dwell time in a certain aisle with the type of products that customers might put in their shopping cart."Dwell time tends to be more valuable to retail stores [than coffee shops]," Rasmussen explained. "For example, shoppers in a midsize retailer may come in and browse for a while. There could be a mechanism to send them a coupon or special offer after a certain amount of time in the store to spur a purchase."Retailers can use heat maps to show where customers dwell. A heat map is a graphical representation in which colors illustrate the values being studied. These maps can pull data from customer Wi-Fi activity. Although only 21 percent of retailers are using heat maps now, 51 percent plan to use them within the next two years, according to IHL Group. Tracking store traffic patterns using Wi-Fi is a location-based marketing strategy, and 58 percent of retailers are increasing their investment in this area, IHL Group revealed.This data can be a big help with product assortment around the store and space planning. If customers dwell but don't purchase anything, retailers can then take a look at the reasons why, like evaluating if a price is too high. Along with dwell time, retailers can monitor footfall patterns, which measures the number of people entering a store.Some of these measurements are available to retailers even if customers don't fully log in to the store's Wi-Fi. If customer devices are configured to actively scan for available access points (APs), then those APs can simply pick up the user's frame and perform basic tracking, though they won't have access to the more detailed personal information you'd get with a full login. However, even basic tracking is enough to build some valuable heat maps for store operators."[Heat maps and location data] take a little more analytical thought and the analytics have to be pretty thorough, but it's an area of optimizing your space that I don't think a lot of smaller retailers think about," Rasmussen said. "Your bigger retailers are now leveraging those tools to understand how people come through so they can optimize their space. But it hasn't moved into the small to midsize business (SMB) market just yet."In addition to shopping, Wi-Fi analytics in retail aids the staffing efforts of human resources (HR) departments. If retailers see people entering the stores and surfing on their Wi-Fi on the weekend versus on a Tuesday, then they'll know to add more workers on that day of the week. As mentioned earlier, heat maps show retailers how many customers are in the store and where they're located."Because [they track the] path as well as the numbers, you can see where people are at what times," Buzek said. "For example, does the deli need more staffing?"Rasmussen noted that the Wi-Fi data is particularly valuable in larger retail stores with many aisles. Retailers can monitor traffic by day of week or time of day to help them decide on staffing needs."When retailers know their peak times, they know when they need more staff," Rasmussen said. "Over time, the data becomes even more valuable as businesses record month-over-month and year-over-year fluctuations." (Image credit: IHL Group)
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Track Store Traffic Patterns By using smart analytics to monitor customers' free Wi-Fi activity, you can get a sense of what marketers call "dwell time." This is where store operators use traffic analytics (often proprietary to specific network monitoring or WiFi marketing tools) to see how long customers linger in a certain section of a store. For example, if you have an end cap display of skin cream at the end of an aisle, you can gain data on whether customers purchased skin cream after they linger in that area.This data helps you evaluate the effectiveness of store displays. You can also compare dwell time in a certain aisle with the type of products that customers might put in their shopping cart."Dwell time tends to be more valuable to retail stores [than coffee shops]," Rasmussen explained. "For example, shoppers in a midsize retailer may come in and browse for a while. There could be a mechanism to send them a coupon or special offer after a certain amount of time in the store to spur a purchase."Retailers can use heat maps to show where customers dwell. A heat map is a graphical representation in which colors illustrate the values being studied. These maps can pull data from customer Wi-Fi activity. Although only 21 percent of retailers are using heat maps now, 51 percent plan to use them within the next two years, according to IHL Group. Tracking store traffic patterns using Wi-Fi is a location-based marketing strategy, and 58 percent of retailers are increasing their investment in this area, IHL Group revealed.This data can be a big help with product assortment around the store and space planning. If customers dwell but don't purchase anything, retailers can then take a look at the reasons why, like evaluating if a price is too high. Along with dwell time, retailers can monitor footfall patterns, which measures the number of people entering a store.Some of these measurements are available to retailers even if customers don't fully log in to the store's Wi-Fi. If customer devices are configured to actively scan for available access points (APs), then those APs can simply pick up the user's frame and perform basic tracking, though they won't have access to the more detailed personal information you'd get with a full login. However, even basic tracking is enough to build some valuable heat maps for store operators."[Heat maps and location data] take a little more analytical thought and the analytics have to be pretty thorough, but it's an area of optimizing your space that I don't think a lot of smaller retailers think about," Rasmussen said. "Your bigger retailers are now leveraging those tools to understand how people come through so they can optimize their space. But it hasn't moved into the small to midsize business (SMB) market just yet."In addition to shopping, Wi-Fi analytics in retail aids the staffing efforts of human resources (HR) departments. If retailers see people entering the stores and surfing on their Wi-Fi on the weekend versus on a Tuesday, then they'll know to add more workers on that day of the week. As mentioned earlier, heat maps show retailers how many customers are in the store and where they're located."Because [they track the] path as well as the numbers, you can see where people are at what times," Buzek said. "For example, does the deli need more staffing?"Rasmussen noted that the Wi-Fi data is particularly valuable in larger retail stores with many aisles. Retailers can monitor traffic by day of week or time of day to help them decide on staffing needs."When retailers know their peak times, they know when they need more staff," Rasmussen said. "Over time, the data becomes even more valuable as businesses record month-over-month and year-over-year fluctuations." (Image credit: IHL Group)