The importance of analyzing customer flows in stores

Where are they stopping? What route do they take through the store? How many customers come into the store? How do they behave? When you start looking at your customer flow, endless questions can start popping up. Answering these questions can prove to unlock hidden treasure: The customer flow can be an excellent indicator for retailers, as it allows for sales strategies to be adapted and perfected. In this article, we’ll look at the importance of analyzing customer flows in stores and how you can do it.

What is a customer flow?

In the basic sense, the customer flow consists of customers’ movements within a retail space, such as a mall or a store. The challenges are multiple, as they’re connected with internal organization and merchandising. So, it forms a pretty essential element of your sales strategy.
Analyzing customer flows can provide priceless information on the security of your store. In busy locations, controlling the number of people inside a store is necessary in order to put measures in place to prevent incidents. Identifying and understanding your customer flow therefore allows you to anticipate busy times and to reinforce your security measures accordingly.

How to analyze your current customer flow

This involves reviewing your current strategy. To do this, start with identifying all of the locations visited by customers and any other visitors. Are there jammed areas or even bottleneck points? Are queues quickly forming in a particular place? Do people seem like they’re looking for something and unable to find it (doing U-turns, going back on themselves, etc.)? All of these elements are indicators for your customer flow. They allow for good flow management and can enable the identification of areas for improvement. The aim? To fluidify the customer journey and wait times in order to improve the customer experience.

Tools for improving customer flows

When it comes to customer flows, using the right kit is essential. You can’t count each and every customer that enters your store by yourself. This is why counting software was developed. More often than not, they operate alongside a camera positioned at a store's entrance or exit. Thanks to an infrared device, the number of people entering and exiting the store can be automatically with great accuracy. The manager can then know, at any given moment, how many customers are in the retail spaces. Beyond this factual information, counting systems provide indices relating to sales strategy performances: Are the window displays drawing people in enough? Are sales assistants meeting customer requirements? Is the customer journey working well? Are any particular spaces visited less than others inside the store? Are some customers quickly leaving the store without making any purchases? When used effectively, all of this data allows retailers to adapt their strategy and boost their sales.

New customer flow technologies

There are new cutting-edge technologies developed around customer flows:

3D people counting

Driven by 3D imaging, this system is able to distinguish people by their size (adults/children). This technology isn't affected by crowding effects.

Heat Map

An exceptionally intelligent camera, it translates visitor flows into mapping, identifying hot and cold spots inside a store. It also provides information on customers’ pathways through the store.

Video surveillance software for stores

Built on cutting-edge technology, video surveillance software for stores allows for extremely reliable customer counting. This type of video surveillance software also analyzes movements using artificial intelligence.

Create an action plan

All of the tools relating to customer flow management are only useful if the data collected is followed up with a concrete action plan, with a view to implementing best practices. Based on any issued identified (excessive queuing, too many customers in the same areas, etc.), you’ll definitely need to reorganize circulation in the store, optimize retail spaces, recruit more checkout staff, sales assistants and/or security agents, or even kit your store out with new customer flow management tools.