The retail climate is difficult, that is no secret. Shops and stores are aware of the difficulties they are facing.
Quad Vision Ltd are not jumping on the bandwagon of saying ‘the high street is dead’ in fact quite the opposite. We don’t think it’s dead.
It does, however, require a different approach. These days shops and stores are being challenged by the increasing the number of online buying opportunities that are competing for the same market.
A previous Quad Vision blog comments on how those brands and stores that are winning the battle for customers, are those retail outlets that are using technical innovation to carve their own unique path forward. Businesses that are choosing to ‘keep doing what we’ve always done’ are the ones that are and will continue to find it more difficult.
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s CEO comments:
“Consumers are seeking phenomenal experiences. Successful companies recognise that experiences rise above everything else.”
Retailers that are stepping beyond stocking shelves and waiting for custom to walk through the door, are delivering a memorable experience to their customers – winning hearts and minds. By reshaping their outlets into places where visitors receive communications that designed specifically for them.
Consumer demographic and behaviour information and analytics are key in this situation. Sourcing this information has been, up until now, rather hit and miss. A mix of point of sale data, customer feedback, anecdotal evidence and some guesswork thrown in the mix.
Change is here
Many businesses are now very familiar with the use of Google style analytics of their website performance and the insights that gives them about their website visitor behaviour.
A very popular way for retailers to communicate with their customers is through their in-store digital signage network. It’s proven to uplift instore sales.
Consider combing the forces of these two elements – your digital signage and analytics. What could be done with that information?
By the relatively straightforward installation of some analytical technology, retailers can gain footfall, behaviour, demographic, gender and age band information all of which provide valuable insights into your customers interaction and habits. Link that to your digital signage and your POS information and you have a powerful tool with which to shape your future business strategic decisions.
Imagine, being able to identify a visitor to your store as say a male in his 30’s and then be able to display digital signage content appropriate for him.
Where certain types of content have proven to drive higher revenue, a retailer could make quick decisions to expand the use of this content or conversely withdraw it if this wasn’t the case.
This kind of technology has existed for some time, but more recently several platforms have been developed which are particularly good at analysing the data effectively.
The following system techniques are used to gather business intelligence and analytical data:
- Footfall counting instore and outside
- Demographic (mood age and gender) profiling
- Heat mapping – analysis of people traffic through your premises
- IMEI code following
- Promotional analysis
- Queue management
- Visitor dwell times
- Visitor journey mapping
- Customer recognition
- Staff exclusion
- Security/Anti-theft protection
- Integration with existing CCTV infrastructure
- Anonymised data
A dashboard presentation of analysed data provides business intelligence or analytical data with which to base future decisions on. Examples of the reporting data include:
- How many people are visiting every day, week, month, year?
- % demographics of store visitors
- The % of passers-by that enter the store
- How long they are your customers staying in store?
- How often do your they return?
- What is taking your customer’s interest
- How do they respond to demographic targeted marketing?
- What was their journey through the store?
- Where are the high footfall and low footfall areas of the building?
- How do people respond to digital marketing messages?
- Queue prediction
All of which can;
- Improve the customer experience
- Provide a bench marking tool
- Provide valuable customer insights
These systems provide customers with a personalised but anonymous experience. They provide relevant content in real-time, based on the gathered demographic profiling evidence.
Look beyond the retail world, further afield to leisure and commercial sectors and the possibilities to use this type of businesses analytics are vast.
Visitor analytics and intelligence gained in places such as museums, galleries, leisure centres, airports, ferry terminals, educational facilities, tourist attractions and large commercial offices would be an incredibly useful tool for strategic planning initiatives.
For further details contact Sanjay Saini from Quad Vision Ltd on 03300 419019