The area I live in has several annual events coming up that are good for businesses and would make it beneficial for store owners to invest in customer counting systems. I say this because while I was working at my part-time retail job I thought about the coming month and two of those activities that will be taking place. Having lived here for over 30 years I am very familiar with the events and I also know that many vendors are in attendance and will need supplies. Some purchase cash boxes, some raffle tickets and others will purchase cash registers. Since I have worked for this retailer for over seven years now I know many of the requests we will get so I started to look at our in-stocks on several of the items. Sure enough we were out of many or critically low and there is a good chance we will lose sales without getting more into the store. We were still several weeks away from the start of the season so I let my store manager know of the potential for missed sales opportunities if we did not put in a request for replenishment of these items. The store manager said he would look into it. The company I work for does have a door counting sensor and the data is tracked and used to some extent I just do not know how much. For small and medium sized retailers if you aren’t keeping track of the foot traffic in your store you could be missing your own opportunities to increase sales.
Customer counting systems are exactly what they sound like. They are systems used to keep up with the number of people entering a store. While many stores will track only the number of sales transactions that take place through the point of sale systems, the system reports how many people entered the building. Some may be protesting, “Why should I care about how many people came in, I need to know how many people spent money!” You should care because if there is a difference between transactions and foot traffic you should be asking, “Why didn’t these people spend money in my store?” How many missed opportunities were there to get an additional sale and your team dropped the ball? During special events or activities was there an increase in patronage that did not reflect in your sales? Was there anything you could have done to increase sales during those times or improve add-on sales? These are all questions that would not need to be asked if a store manager has a door counting sensor installed.
The addition of a door counting sensor would be beneficial to the small store owner for evaluating the impact local events are having on your business. Using the information gleaned from that data can help prepare you for similar events in the future. If the activity is going to be an annual event then you can look at what you sold and ran out of and have more on hand next time. As an example take the Fourth of July. If you sell coolers, grills, grilling accessories or outdoor games look at what your foot traffic was last year and sales of those items. Did you run out? Add a few more units to your on-hands the next year. Did your door counts far exceed your sales transactions? You can use this information in conjunction with your scheduling plans to determine if you could have used additional floor help to provide service. Could you have used an extra cashier to ring transactions so people would not get frustrated and leave empty handed? Bill Bregar, the founder of Loss Prevention Systems Inc. recognizes that not having real patron numbers only gives you a glimpse at what is really taking place in your store. This is why he strongly supports adding a system to his client’s stores.
Customer counting systems are a valuable tool for retailers who are truly interested in improving sales. Used in conjunction with sales data and calendar and event activities it can be a powerful addition for evaluating what you are doing and preparing for future activities. Don’t settle for less than your store can actually produce, install a door counting sensor today!
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