People Counters: How to Measure Footfall and Conversion in Your Store

Your till system tells you how many receipts the store has issued and how much has been sold. But it says nothing about how many people came in without buying. That is where people counters come in. By counting visitors at the entrance and comparing them with sales, you get one of retail's most important metrics: the conversion rate.

What is a people counter?

A people counter is a sensor, usually mounted in the ceiling above the entrance, that counts how many people enter and leave the store. The data is sent to software where you can see footfall by hour, day, week and store.

Different technologies

• Stereoscopic 3D sensors: use two camera lenses to perceive depth and can tell apart people walking side by side. They count anonymously without storing images.
• Thermal or infrared sensors: detect body heat or movement. Can be a simpler option for smaller entrances.
• Video-based counting: cameras with analytics that count people. Calls for extra thought around privacy.
• Simple beam counters: a light beam across the entrance. Inexpensive but less accurate when several people pass at once.

Which technology is right depends on the width of the entrance, ceiling height, lighting conditions and how accurate the figures need to be.

What is conversion?

The conversion rate shows what share of visitors make a purchase. It is calculated like this:

Conversion rate = number of transactions (receipts) / number of visitors

In other words, conversion is the proportion of visitors who actually bought something. Because a people counter counts individuals rather than groups, it is worth remembering that a family or couple shopping together produce one receipt but several visitors. What matters is following how conversion develops over time rather than fixating on a single figure. It sounds simple, but the metric says a great deal about how well the store makes the most of its visitors.

Why conversion matters

Sales can fall for two reasons: fewer people come in, or fewer of those who come in buy. Without footfall data, you cannot tell the two apart. With people counters, you can see whether the problem lies in attracting customers or in what happens inside the store.

Metrics you can track

• Visitors per hour: shows when the store is busiest and quietest.
• Conversion by hour and day: shows when the store loses visitors who do not buy.
• Average transaction value: sales per receipt.
• Sales per visitor: combines conversion and average transaction value.
• Comparison between stores: for chains, it is valuable to see how stores with similar conditions perform.

How to use the figures

Staffing

The most common use is matching staffing to when customers actually arrive. If conversion drops during the hours when most people visit, it may be a sign that there are not enough staff on the floor.

Opening hours

Footfall data gives you a factual basis when considering changes to opening hours, for example whether it is worth opening earlier or closing later.

Promotions and marketing

With people counters you can see whether a promotion, a window display or an advert actually brought in more visitors, and whether those visitors also bought.

Store layout

Combined with video analytics and heat maps, you can see how customers move around the store and which areas are used most and least.

Queues

Long queues can lower conversion. If you notice conversion falling when footfall is high, it may be worth reviewing the checkout flow or adding queue alerts.

Questions a people counter can help you answer

• Which hours have the most visitors, and is staffing matched to them?
• Did footfall rise during the promotion week, and did the new visitors buy?
• How do weekdays differ from weekends?
• Which stores in the chain have the highest and lowest conversion, and why?
• Did a refit or a new window display change the number of visitors?

Common pitfalls

• Drawing conclusions too quickly: a single day or week can be affected by weather, school holidays or events.
• Comparing stores like for like: stores with different locations, sizes and ranges have different conditions.
• Looking only at footfall: more visitors is not automatically good if conversion falls at the same time.
• Not following up: the figures add most value when they are used in day-to-day work, for example at weekly meetings.

Things to consider during installation

• Positioning: the sensor must cover the whole entrance and be mounted at the correct height according to the manufacturer's instructions.
• Multiple entrances: every entrance and exit needs counting, otherwise the figures will be misleading.
• Staff: staff walking in and out can skew the statistics. Some systems can filter this out; otherwise a staff entrance can be counted separately.
• Calibration: check the count after installation by comparing it with a manual count over a period.
• Till integration: to calculate conversion, receipt data needs to be pulled from the till system by the hour.
• Network: the sensors need a stable connection to send data.

Privacy

Modern people counters can count anonymously without identifying individuals or storing images. It is still good practice to inform people about the counting and to choose a solution designed with privacy in mind. If the counting relies on cameras, read the guidance on camera surveillance from Sweden's data protection authority, IMY.

Getting started

Start by collecting data for a period before drawing conclusions. Figures vary between days of the week, seasons and weather. Once you have a baseline, you can start testing changes and see how they affect footfall and conversion.

How StoreIQ can help

StoreIQ installs and configures people counters at store entrances across Sweden. We choose the technology to suit your entrance, connect the counters to your till system so you can track conversion, and show visitors and sales by the hour in StoreIQ Hub.

For chains, we can roll out people counters across multiple stores and provide a combined view of every location. Contact us and we will go through what you want to measure.