Customer Counting Systems-3 WC Blog 430
Door Counting Sensor4
A Door Counting Sensor Is A More Sensible Method To Allocate Payroll Than Old Sales Data
I work in a college library as a day shift supervisor. I have recently changed shifts from being an overnight supervisor in the same library for the past six years. The difference in positions is significant. Where I am used to working with only a few students in the building after 1:00am, I now have to adjust to having several hundred in the building at any given time. This means we provide more assistance, have more student workers during a shift and usually will have more staff at one time. We also have more resources on campus to refer a patron to when they have questions regarding their enrollment, classes, fines, etc. There are times when retail owners and managers have varying numbers of customers in their buildings too. Knowing when those differences take place and being able to track them by day of the week, hour of the day or a particular seasonal event enables store managers to adjust workloads around those times and utilize payroll dollars in a manner that makes sense. The question is, how do you track customer counts? Using customer counting systems is the most efficient means of doing this.
Customer counting systems keep track of the number of people entering a store by the hour of day. In our library we send a worker around with an iPad and they count the number of people we have on an hourly basis. A door counting sensor can alleviate this problem and for a store, a waste of payroll if someone is stationed at a door to count heads. They can provide electronic article surveillance (EAS) alarm response time for store managers to assess whether personnel are responding to alarms appropriately. The advantage of having the EAS system is that a store can impact theft and fraud and improve profits through reduced shrink. Add that to the benefits of adjusting payroll to be customer driven and stores can see substantial profit increases.
I know some of you may doubt me right now. It sounds a little incredible that something as simple as a door counting sensor could really make an impact on sales. Consider for a moment that there are people coming into your store and leaving without making any purchases. If you knew how many people are visiting and at what time they are visiting you could adjust your scheduling. I am aware of two methods that are regularly used for retail scheduling by large businesses. One method is when a store is allocated payroll hours by a headquarters and stores use the hours where they deem appropriate. It may be based on merchandise shipments that will be coming in that week or a store manager allotting hours based on prior year sales data.
The other means I have seen used is to have payroll dollars allocated to a store. The headache with this is there has to be tracking of employee pay rates. A store may have to have fewer people on the salesfloor for a shift since Mary Ann earns $10.00 an hour while Jimmy Bob earns $8.00 an hour. When these stores are trending over that dollar amount they have to cut payroll dollars. This poses a conundrum for the store management team they have to decide where those hours will come from. Do you take it from cashiering? Then you have a line of customers that gets angry and abandons shopping carts and leave the store. Oh and don’t forget the snowball effect that has. Now, someone has to get all the merchandise put back and that is on top of the regular tasks that have to be done before the store closes. Is the team going to have to stay later than scheduled in order to get the store back in shape for the next day? A customer counting system allows managers to see when the peak traffic is in the store. Payroll based on dollars or hours using old sales information may give a false picture of the needs for the store.
Get a true picture of how many people are coming into your store. Use a door counting sensor and get reliable information without wasting payroll dollars to do it. When you staff your store to provide adequate service to all of the people walking through your doors you will see your sales improve and that translates to more returning customers and new customers due to word of mouth advertising.
Need information on a door counting sensor? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
I work in a college library as a day shift supervisor. I have recently changed shifts from being an overnight supervisor in the same library for the past six years. The difference in positions is significant. Where I am used to working with only a few students in the building after 1:00am, I now have to adjust to having several hundred in the building at any given time. This means we provide more assistance, have more student workers during a shift and usually will have more staff at one time. We also have more resources on campus to refer a patron to when they have questions regarding their enrollment, classes, fines, etc. There are times when retail owners and managers have varying numbers of customers in their buildings too. Knowing when those differences take place and being able to track them by day of the week, hour of the day or a particular seasonal event enables store managers to adjust workloads around those times and utilize payroll dollars in a manner that makes sense. The question is, how do you track customer counts? Using customer counting systems is the most efficient means of doing this.
Customer counting systems keep track of the number of people entering a store by the hour of day. In our library we send a worker around with an iPad and they count the number of people we have on an hourly basis. A door counting sensor can alleviate this problem and for a store, a waste of payroll if someone is stationed at a door to count heads. They can provide electronic article surveillance (EAS) alarm response time for store managers to assess whether personnel are responding to alarms appropriately. The advantage of having the EAS system is that a store can impact theft and fraud and improve profits through reduced shrink. Add that to the benefits of adjusting payroll to be customer driven and stores can see substantial profit increases.
I know some of you may doubt me right now. It sounds a little incredible that something as simple as a door counting sensor could really make an impact on sales. Consider for a moment that there are people coming into your store and leaving without making any purchases. If you knew how many people are visiting and at what time they are visiting you could adjust your scheduling. I am aware of two methods that are regularly used for retail scheduling by large businesses. One method is when a store is allocated payroll hours by a headquarters and stores use the hours where they deem appropriate. It may be based on merchandise shipments that will be coming in that week or a store manager allotting hours based on prior year sales data.
The other means I have seen used is to have payroll dollars allocated to a store. The headache with this is there has to be tracking of employee pay rates. A store may have to have fewer people on the salesfloor for a shift since Mary Ann earns $10.00 an hour while Jimmy Bob earns $8.00 an hour. When these stores are trending over that dollar amount they have to cut payroll dollars. This poses a conundrum for the store management team they have to decide where those hours will come from. Do you take it from cashiering? Then you have a line of customers that gets angry and abandons shopping carts and leave the store. Oh and don’t forget the snowball effect that has. Now, someone has to get all the merchandise put back and that is on top of the regular tasks that have to be done before the store closes. Is the team going to have to stay later than scheduled in order to get the store back in shape for the next day? A customer counting system allows managers to see when the peak traffic is in the store. Payroll based on dollars or hours using old sales information may give a false picture of the needs for the store.
Get a true picture of how many people are coming into your store. Use a door counting sensor and get reliable information without wasting payroll dollars to do it. When you staff your store to provide adequate service to all of the people walking through your doors you will see your sales improve and that translates to more returning customers and new customers due to word of mouth advertising.
Need information on a door counting sensor? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Customer Counting Systems -3 WC Blog 407
Door Counting Sensor -5
Do You Sense That You Have More Customers Than Sales Reflect? A Door Counting Sensor Can Help You Identify Missed Sales Opportunities
I remember when I first moved to my state the road system was horrible in some areas. There was a military base to support and the area was a tourist destination as well. Two major road arteries coming into and out of the area were inadequate for the amount of traffic we were seeing. Eventually government officials realized that the area could not support further growth and attract more tourists without road improvements. In order to support the need for road improvements, vehicle traffic counters were set out on roads. While there are a number of measurement tools available the one that I was most aware of was rubber hoses that were placed across the road called pneumatic road tubes. I am certain that there were other factors taken into consideration before the decisions for road widening projects were started. Factors such as traffic accidents, traffic congestion reports, hotel occupancy levels, and the growth of businesses along major road arteries I am sure all were taken into account. I can look at the impact of ongoing road projects and see what the impacts have been. More shopping outlets have built up along these roads. Major housing complexes have popped up and continue to pop up. A local university has grown by leaps and bounds from roughly 3,000 students in the late 1980’s to more than 10,000 students today. Retail stores would do well to learn the importance of customer counting systems as they serve a very similar purpose to the vehicle traffic counters.
Customer counting systems use a door counting sensor to keep track of the number of patrons entering a store. It also measure the time of day of the customers are entering the store. For store owners and managers this data can be used to maximize the use of payroll for staffing purposes. Stores without the protections offered by electronic article surveillance (EAS) can use a door counting sensor as a stand-alone device to track foot traffic patterns. Those stores with Checkpoint EAS towers can have the counter attached to it and get the added benefit of information to track alarm activations, times of activations and employee response to alarms. A sensor is a powerful tool to further improve shortage results and aid in identifying training opportunities for employees.
I want to be clear I am not suggesting the vehicle traffic counting systems were driving increases in visitors and growth in the area. There was an identified problem with traffic based on resident complaints, business owner input, accident reporting and I am sure local official input. It is also possible news outlets gave a picture of problem roads and conditions. The use of the vehicle traffic counters gave department of transportation officials the necessary information to support the argument for necessary improvements. THAT planned development in the proper areas led to ADDITIONAL growth and expansion. In like manner I am not suggesting a door counting sensor will bring in more customers that would be a logical fallacy. What I am saying is that the information you receive from your door counting sensor can be used to analyze your business. Compare your foot traffic to your sales and also your staffing. Are you seeing a drop in sales even when the patron count is higher, it could be you are not adequately staffing your store during those periods. You may need for sales floor assistance to help customer and cashiers to ring them up. As you identify your opportunities you strategically adapt your payroll budget. When sales begin to climb you may find you actually have room to expand your business, just as road improvements in my area has driven business and tourism growth.
Why not take a look at the possibility that customer counting systems could be helpful in improving store operations and driving sales? Consider installing a door counting sensor today.
Need information on a customer counting system? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
I remember when I first moved to my state the road system was horrible in some areas. There was a military base to support and the area was a tourist destination as well. Two major road arteries coming into and out of the area were inadequate for the amount of traffic we were seeing. Eventually government officials realized that the area could not support further growth and attract more tourists without road improvements. In order to support the need for road improvements, vehicle traffic counters were set out on roads. While there are a number of measurement tools available the one that I was most aware of was rubber hoses that were placed across the road called pneumatic road tubes. I am certain that there were other factors taken into consideration before the decisions for road widening projects were started. Factors such as traffic accidents, traffic congestion reports, hotel occupancy levels, and the growth of businesses along major road arteries I am sure all were taken into account. I can look at the impact of ongoing road projects and see what the impacts have been. More shopping outlets have built up along these roads. Major housing complexes have popped up and continue to pop up. A local university has grown by leaps and bounds from roughly 3,000 students in the late 1980’s to more than 10,000 students today. Retail stores would do well to learn the importance of customer counting systems as they serve a very similar purpose to the vehicle traffic counters.
Customer counting systems use a door counting sensor to keep track of the number of patrons entering a store. It also measure the time of day of the customers are entering the store. For store owners and managers this data can be used to maximize the use of payroll for staffing purposes. Stores without the protections offered by electronic article surveillance (EAS) can use a door counting sensor as a stand-alone device to track foot traffic patterns. Those stores with Checkpoint EAS towers can have the counter attached to it and get the added benefit of information to track alarm activations, times of activations and employee response to alarms. A sensor is a powerful tool to further improve shortage results and aid in identifying training opportunities for employees.
I want to be clear I am not suggesting the vehicle traffic counting systems were driving increases in visitors and growth in the area. There was an identified problem with traffic based on resident complaints, business owner input, accident reporting and I am sure local official input. It is also possible news outlets gave a picture of problem roads and conditions. The use of the vehicle traffic counters gave department of transportation officials the necessary information to support the argument for necessary improvements. THAT planned development in the proper areas led to ADDITIONAL growth and expansion. In like manner I am not suggesting a door counting sensor will bring in more customers that would be a logical fallacy. What I am saying is that the information you receive from your door counting sensor can be used to analyze your business. Compare your foot traffic to your sales and also your staffing. Are you seeing a drop in sales even when the patron count is higher, it could be you are not adequately staffing your store during those periods. You may need for sales floor assistance to help customer and cashiers to ring them up. As you identify your opportunities you strategically adapt your payroll budget. When sales begin to climb you may find you actually have room to expand your business, just as road improvements in my area has driven business and tourism growth.
Why not take a look at the possibility that customer counting systems could be helpful in improving store operations and driving sales? Consider installing a door counting sensor today.
Need information on a customer counting system? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
People Counting Systems-4 WC Blog 386
door counting sensor-3
Make Sense Of Your Store Promotions By Using A Door Counting Sensor
Working in an academic library I am constantly learning new things that can be applied to other jobs or businesses. One example of this is a departmental assessment that we are currently conducting as a part of a larger assessment the college is going through. The college formed a committee that identified areas the college wants to focus on in order to achieve specific goals outlined in a strategic plan. That focus is on student retention, academic excellence, etc. In the process of completing the library assessment plan, we are learning how to put it together this year but in preparation for the next year assessment what I have learned is that we have to be more thoughtful in what we do. What I mean is this, rather than doing a project or making a change for the sake of doing it, we are going to have a reason for doing it and that reason should have some type of measurement to it. For example, last year we moved some of our video collection to another floor to make space for group study and provide access to more power supplies. We knew it needed to be done we had studied the behaviors of students the year before. What we failed to do was have numbers to substantiate the need for the change. On the other hand, what we could do was show the increase in patron counts as a result of the changes because that is something we were already tracking. We were able to at least demonstrate an increase in the number of people using that floor during the school year. The same process can be applied to retail stores by using people counting systems.
People counting systems assist store owners in keeping track of the number of people entering the store. By installing a door counting system at the entrance/exit of a building, managers can determine the busiest days of the week, the busiest hours and balance work schedules around that information. Additionally, a door counting sensor can be a stand-alone device or you can have it attached to your electronic article surveillance pedestal if you have a Checkpoint System protecting your merchandise from theft. If your store does have the pedestals, the door counting sensor also tracks the door alarm activity and gives store owners a report of what times alarms are going off. This information can be helpful in comparing to alarm activity logs to see if alarm activity is being addressed and if alarm activations are theft related. If there are a lot of alarms at specific times of the day a store manager may determine a person may need to be assigned as a door greeter to respond to alarms.
If a manager were to be put an assessment type program in place, the people counting systems will allow stores to measure the impact of sales initiatives. What do I mean by this? Let’s say a store owner decided he/she wanted to try to drive sales and reach out to the community. The manager has a 3-day weekend sale that provides military veterans with a 20% discount on all purchases with proof of their service, either a retired military I.D. or a Department of Defense form 214. The sale is promoted in social media, in newspapers and on store windows, doors, and signage throughout the store. Since the door counting sensor is in place, a baseline for this weekend can be compared to other weekends and to the same weekend the prior year(s). The sale is run and at the completion of the sale not only are register receipts compared but foot traffic is as well. I know you may be thinking that if sales are up isn’t that good enough? No, that won’t tell the whole story because you were giving discounts, so it isn’t apples to apples. You want to compare retail traffic because that will show if your promotion garnered additional people to visit your location. You could have a new batch of shoppers who never visited before. Receipts may only be up slightly but you could well have drawn in future clients who will be willing to shop in your store in the future. That is the kind of assessment information you want to measure.
People counting systems are not just another statistic gathering tool. They can be a powerful means of evaluating sales promotions, social media impact and customer service impact. It is up to owners and managers to decide if they want to keep flying by the seat of their pants or be strategic in how they conduct business and drive up sales.
Need information on people counting systems? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Working in an academic library I am constantly learning new things that can be applied to other jobs or businesses. One example of this is a departmental assessment that we are currently conducting as a part of a larger assessment the college is going through. The college formed a committee that identified areas the college wants to focus on in order to achieve specific goals outlined in a strategic plan. That focus is on student retention, academic excellence, etc. In the process of completing the library assessment plan, we are learning how to put it together this year but in preparation for the next year assessment what I have learned is that we have to be more thoughtful in what we do. What I mean is this, rather than doing a project or making a change for the sake of doing it, we are going to have a reason for doing it and that reason should have some type of measurement to it. For example, last year we moved some of our video collection to another floor to make space for group study and provide access to more power supplies. We knew it needed to be done we had studied the behaviors of students the year before. What we failed to do was have numbers to substantiate the need for the change. On the other hand, what we could do was show the increase in patron counts as a result of the changes because that is something we were already tracking. We were able to at least demonstrate an increase in the number of people using that floor during the school year. The same process can be applied to retail stores by using people counting systems.
People counting systems assist store owners in keeping track of the number of people entering the store. By installing a door counting system at the entrance/exit of a building, managers can determine the busiest days of the week, the busiest hours and balance work schedules around that information. Additionally, a door counting sensor can be a stand-alone device or you can have it attached to your electronic article surveillance pedestal if you have a Checkpoint System protecting your merchandise from theft. If your store does have the pedestals, the door counting sensor also tracks the door alarm activity and gives store owners a report of what times alarms are going off. This information can be helpful in comparing to alarm activity logs to see if alarm activity is being addressed and if alarm activations are theft related. If there are a lot of alarms at specific times of the day a store manager may determine a person may need to be assigned as a door greeter to respond to alarms.
If a manager were to be put an assessment type program in place, the people counting systems will allow stores to measure the impact of sales initiatives. What do I mean by this? Let’s say a store owner decided he/she wanted to try to drive sales and reach out to the community. The manager has a 3-day weekend sale that provides military veterans with a 20% discount on all purchases with proof of their service, either a retired military I.D. or a Department of Defense form 214. The sale is promoted in social media, in newspapers and on store windows, doors, and signage throughout the store. Since the door counting sensor is in place, a baseline for this weekend can be compared to other weekends and to the same weekend the prior year(s). The sale is run and at the completion of the sale not only are register receipts compared but foot traffic is as well. I know you may be thinking that if sales are up isn’t that good enough? No, that won’t tell the whole story because you were giving discounts, so it isn’t apples to apples. You want to compare retail traffic because that will show if your promotion garnered additional people to visit your location. You could have a new batch of shoppers who never visited before. Receipts may only be up slightly but you could well have drawn in future clients who will be willing to shop in your store in the future. That is the kind of assessment information you want to measure.
People counting systems are not just another statistic gathering tool. They can be a powerful means of evaluating sales promotions, social media impact and customer service impact. It is up to owners and managers to decide if they want to keep flying by the seat of their pants or be strategic in how they conduct business and drive up sales.
Need information on people counting systems? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
AA Blog 50
Customer Counting Systems: 5
Door Counting Sensor: 3
Improve Customer Service And Staffing Inefficiencies With A Customer Counting System.
Being in loss prevention I always tend to think about security related products and how they can benefit companies. I do this all the time! Everywhere I go, I am thinking about how certain solutions could assist in making my experience more convenient. Maybe that sounds silly, but as a consumer there are so many areas that I encounter on a daily basis that involve customer service and sales, that I can’t help but ponder how it could be improved. For example, I was at the bank the other day to deposit a check, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed with the line of customers waiting for assistance. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they are doing the best they can to provide good service to their customers, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am on lunch break, and have only a prescribed amount of time to complete my errand. It was the middle of the work week, around lunch time, and they only had two tellers working. There were about ten customer’s waiting for assistance and it was moving very slow. When it comes to banking, they don’t have extra tellers sitting in the back just waiting to jump in to assist, and you know customer service doesn’t fall into a loan officer’s job description, so your only option is to wait or leave and come back later. Well I wasn’t leaving, because I needed to deposit my check, so I waited. While waiting, semi-patiently, I began to think about this situation and how I could improve this process. Obviously the bank, like other services, has to try and determine what their customer rates are going to be based various factors. They might be able to do a trending analysis on transactions to get a better understanding of transaction frequency and customer rates, but I can only assume this would be a daunting task. They can predict customer rates based on certain factors, like holiday schedules, business hours, and typical pay cycles, but it’s definitely not a science. Although, a customer counting system would alleviate the guess work, and allow for a real time look at customer rates and waiting times.
Although customer counting systems are typically designed for the retail industry, they can be effective in various customer service related fields. In the banking industry, door counting sensors could be a valuable means to monitor customer traffic, both entering and exiting the institution. These devices are designed so that it can provide an automatic report every night, which details the data hourly. This level of detail can assist management in determining how long the transactions are taking and how that is affecting customer satisfaction. Customer counting systems can assist with employee management and staffing issues as well. Evaluating customer rates can allow managers to better staff their branches, based on customer history, thus reducing unneeded staffing and reducing cost. The door counting sensors provide a real time means to evaluate customer traffic, evaluate staffing needs, and increase profits, while improving customer satisfaction.
Technology is imperative in today’s society, and a great way to improve various parts of our business’ practices. Customer counting systems are no different. They provide a great way to track customer activity, manage resources, and identify weaknesses in customer service. The door counting sensors are very easy to install and connect utilizing your current internet connection. The reporting feature is very useful and can also assist in identifying marketing opportunities. A door counting sensor isn’t limited to retail; in fact it can be utilized by anyone in the customer service field.
Get more information on customer counting systems, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Being in loss prevention I always tend to think about security related products and how they can benefit companies. I do this all the time! Everywhere I go, I am thinking about how certain solutions could assist in making my experience more convenient. Maybe that sounds silly, but as a consumer there are so many areas that I encounter on a daily basis that involve customer service and sales, that I can’t help but ponder how it could be improved. For example, I was at the bank the other day to deposit a check, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed with the line of customers waiting for assistance. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they are doing the best they can to provide good service to their customers, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am on lunch break, and have only a prescribed amount of time to complete my errand. It was the middle of the work week, around lunch time, and they only had two tellers working. There were about ten customer’s waiting for assistance and it was moving very slow. When it comes to banking, they don’t have extra tellers sitting in the back just waiting to jump in to assist, and you know customer service doesn’t fall into a loan officer’s job description, so your only option is to wait or leave and come back later. Well I wasn’t leaving, because I needed to deposit my check, so I waited. While waiting, semi-patiently, I began to think about this situation and how I could improve this process. Obviously the bank, like other services, has to try and determine what their customer rates are going to be based various factors. They might be able to do a trending analysis on transactions to get a better understanding of transaction frequency and customer rates, but I can only assume this would be a daunting task. They can predict customer rates based on certain factors, like holiday schedules, business hours, and typical pay cycles, but it’s definitely not a science. Although, a customer counting system would alleviate the guess work, and allow for a real time look at customer rates and waiting times.
Although customer counting systems are typically designed for the retail industry, they can be effective in various customer service related fields. In the banking industry, door counting sensors could be a valuable means to monitor customer traffic, both entering and exiting the institution. These devices are designed so that it can provide an automatic report every night, which details the data hourly. This level of detail can assist management in determining how long the transactions are taking and how that is affecting customer satisfaction. Customer counting systems can assist with employee management and staffing issues as well. Evaluating customer rates can allow managers to better staff their branches, based on customer history, thus reducing unneeded staffing and reducing cost. The door counting sensors provide a real time means to evaluate customer traffic, evaluate staffing needs, and increase profits, while improving customer satisfaction.
Technology is imperative in today’s society, and a great way to improve various parts of our business’ practices. Customer counting systems are no different. They provide a great way to track customer activity, manage resources, and identify weaknesses in customer service. The door counting sensors are very easy to install and connect utilizing your current internet connection. The reporting feature is very useful and can also assist in identifying marketing opportunities. A door counting sensor isn’t limited to retail; in fact it can be utilized by anyone in the customer service field.
Get more information on customer counting systems, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.
Door counting sensor-4 WC blog 295
Retail Traffic Counting system-3
Customer Counting Systems-3
Special Events And Helping Charitable Causes Can Create Increases In Customers; Customer Counting Systems Aid In Future Planning
Have you ever held a special event in your store to support a charity or perhaps to try to increase your sales or even to do a little of both? I can think of several instances when I worked for a big box retailer that we did some of these things. One time our store manager permitted a local radio station to hold a radio-a-thon in the store to raise money for a great cause. Normally charities were not permitted to hold such events but our store manager had a big heart for children and especially the great work by this organization. To be honest, I can’t recall if only pledges were accepted or if monetary donations were received as well, but I do recall it was a success by the money raised for the organization. Did new people visit our store who had never been there before? We had no idea, we had no way to track foot traffic since we had no door counting sensor. An event that I helped sponsor in the store for several years was a “Santa’s Helpers” program. Working with our local police and fire department we would provide additional staff and cashiers to help underprivileged children and the public safety officials to shop for clothing, toys and necessities. Our store also donated lunch in our food court to feed everyone before they left. It was a very satisfying experience to see these kids getting new items they might not have had an opportunity to purchase otherwise. How many people came during these events, including visitors who were curious about what was going on? I wish I knew, a retail traffic counting system could have provided that information.
A retail traffic counting system keeps a retailer informed about how many customers are walking through their doors. A door counting sensor at the entrances detects the patrons walking in and out and can break down that information to the time of day. Stores that have installed a Checkpoint security system with electronic article surveillance antennas at the front doors in order to prevent shoplifting can have door sensors attached to the antennas. In these cases stores an also receive reports of EAS alarm activations and analyze that data to detect patterns of theft attempts. They use the information to create theft prevention plans and reduce shoplifting. By knowing how many people are actually entering the store at given times, retail managers can create improved staffing and payroll models based on historical data. This could include day of the week information or holiday staffing by hours of the day. If your Wednesday mornings show a minimal amount of foot traffic, it might be the time you shift some of your payroll spending elsewhere.
This historical data provided by the customer counting systems can also be used to determine if an event or sales promotion had an impact on pulling in additional customers. Let’s say for example you own a book store and you bring in an author for a book signing. The author is there to sell his/her book and you want to be the store to sell those books. You may be able to use sales information to determine if you sold a quantity of a certain book, but how many people showed up to the store that day? Sales receipts don’t tell you that information, a customer counting system will. Did you have an increase in the number of customers this year over the same day last year? If not, maybe this was an event you will not want to hold again in the future, especially if you brought in extra staff to help out. A door counting sensor gives you the ability to make intelligent decisions about how to spend payroll. Perhaps you choose to hold another book signing but this time you don’t spend the extra money on additional staff.
Retail traffic counting systems can make your business more profitable using measurable results of special events or marketing activities. By making sure you have enough staff on hand for your next event based on prior data and sales will certainly be increased. Don’t delay in getting a door counting sensor installed, the sooner you do, the sooner you will start collecting information for the future!
Need information on door counting sensors? Give us a call at 1.770.426.0547 now.
Have you ever held a special event in your store to support a charity or perhaps to try to increase your sales or even to do a little of both? I can think of several instances when I worked for a big box retailer that we did some of these things. One time our store manager permitted a local radio station to hold a radio-a-thon in the store to raise money for a great cause. Normally charities were not permitted to hold such events but our store manager had a big heart for children and especially the great work by this organization. To be honest, I can’t recall if only pledges were accepted or if monetary donations were received as well, but I do recall it was a success by the money raised for the organization. Did new people visit our store who had never been there before? We had no idea, we had no way to track foot traffic since we had no door counting sensor. An event that I helped sponsor in the store for several years was a “Santa’s Helpers” program. Working with our local police and fire department we would provide additional staff and cashiers to help underprivileged children and the public safety officials to shop for clothing, toys and necessities. Our store also donated lunch in our food court to feed everyone before they left. It was a very satisfying experience to see these kids getting new items they might not have had an opportunity to purchase otherwise. How many people came during these events, including visitors who were curious about what was going on? I wish I knew, a retail traffic counting system could have provided that information.
A retail traffic counting system keeps a retailer informed about how many customers are walking through their doors. A door counting sensor at the entrances detects the patrons walking in and out and can break down that information to the time of day. Stores that have installed a Checkpoint security system with electronic article surveillance antennas at the front doors in order to prevent shoplifting can have door sensors attached to the antennas. In these cases stores an also receive reports of EAS alarm activations and analyze that data to detect patterns of theft attempts. They use the information to create theft prevention plans and reduce shoplifting. By knowing how many people are actually entering the store at given times, retail managers can create improved staffing and payroll models based on historical data. This could include day of the week information or holiday staffing by hours of the day. If your Wednesday mornings show a minimal amount of foot traffic, it might be the time you shift some of your payroll spending elsewhere.
This historical data provided by the customer counting systems can also be used to determine if an event or sales promotion had an impact on pulling in additional customers. Let’s say for example you own a book store and you bring in an author for a book signing. The author is there to sell his/her book and you want to be the store to sell those books. You may be able to use sales information to determine if you sold a quantity of a certain book, but how many people showed up to the store that day? Sales receipts don’t tell you that information, a customer counting system will. Did you have an increase in the number of customers this year over the same day last year? If not, maybe this was an event you will not want to hold again in the future, especially if you brought in extra staff to help out. A door counting sensor gives you the ability to make intelligent decisions about how to spend payroll. Perhaps you choose to hold another book signing but this time you don’t spend the extra money on additional staff.
Retail traffic counting systems can make your business more profitable using measurable results of special events or marketing activities. By making sure you have enough staff on hand for your next event based on prior data and sales will certainly be increased. Don’t delay in getting a door counting sensor installed, the sooner you do, the sooner you will start collecting information for the future!
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