Assist browsers
“Just browsers” are a stores biggest potential for higher conversion rates and more profits. Customers asking for assistance are already likely to purchase and Although the customer may say she’s only looking, she is most definitely looking for something special, a shirt, a skirt, something for work, something for date night on Thursday. The trick is to overcome the just looking brush off. Instead of stepping quietly away uttering a let me know if you need anything, try asking if the customer is looking for anything in particular and perhaps use a little humour to keep the conversation going. Keeping a polite, positive conversation while trying to focus in on what the customer is looking for is your best bet of changing a browser into a buyer and Peocon research has shown that browser conversion rates improve when value added service is provided. Often customers feel obliged to purchase something from sales associates that go that extra mile

Add value
What value added service really means is adding something to the customers shopping experience. This may be suggesting and running to find alternative items and different sizes. Make your customer feel a bit special, after all shopping is more about fulfilling emotional needs than tangible measurable needs. This is true in almost all commerce and the sales associates job is to make the whole shopping experience a part of this emotional fulfilment.

Offer personal experiences
Offering personal experiences from using products or items can be part of enhancing the customers shopping experience and helps the sales associate advocate the products.

Get them to try it out
By getting the customer to try the item their dwelling time in the store is increased and thereby they become more likely to make a purchase. Trying the product out also increases the sales associates exposure to the customer as he now has more openings to suggest alternatives or accessories to complement the item in question.

Learn from failures
Follow your progress. If your new sales strategies or services are note raising the conversion rate or it is falling they are not working and need adjustment. The only way to know your conversion rate is to actively and accurately count the number of customers entering the store. Retailers that analyse and monitor their conversion rates and the factors that affect it are better positioned to learn from mistakes and steer their sales associates in the right direction. By constantly counting customers while using different sales and promotion tactics and following the effects on customer traffic and the conversion rate a store can learn from both failures and successes.

This inability to be able to predict what items will sell stems from a number of factors one of them being that many retailers rely solely on past data to predict for the future. This means that item sales from last year are used to determine number of items to have on stock this year, perhaps not taking into account changes in fashion or other trends. Without sophisticated technological solutions it is difficult for retailers to predict what will catch on, resulting in overstocking on some items and a shortage on others.

Also without knowing what their conversion rates are and specifically conversion rates on specific items are then management is not able to determine if an item on sale is salable or not. By closely monitoring customer traffic inside the store and counting the people visiting each display management would be able to determine this almost instantly. High conversion rates on specific items would mean hot products and low conversion rates would mean products that should not be reordered. The results should be higher inventory turnover, lower cost of goods sold and higher profit margins.

Customers not being provided with service and sold to tend to spend less time in the store, be less likely to make a purchase, have fewer items in each basket and spend less money. So the potential benefits of striking the balance right can be substantial.

But how to reach this delicate balance? The first step is to follow a few basic Key performance indicators, such as your customer traffic, number of transactions and transaction size. These will then have to be base-lined as both traffic and sales may have extreme seasonal differences. It is then simply a matter of finding the ratio of employees vs. customers that gives the highest average conversion rate.

Customer counting provides data to build intelligent traffic forecasts to use in staffing decisions. The forecasts take into account the season, time in month, weekday and even hour to provide the best possible information to determine how many employees should be on the floor at any given time.

Good salespeople sell stuff people already wish for by helping them overcome boundaries and fears related to the purchase. Good salespeople help customers overcome their fears and realise their dreams, however small or big. This is valuable customer service that will generate happy and returning customers.

• Conversion Rate Consulting
• Conversion Rate Benchmarking
• Analysis of Daily, Weekly, Monthly trends
• Staff Sales Analysis
• Introduction of new sales motivators and measurements
• Implementation and follow up

“We increased turnover by a sustained 30%” Sverrir Berg, Dagur Group

• Staff Scheduling Optimized for Sales
• Daily Visitor Trend Analysis
• What Visitor to Staff Rate has Highest Conversion?
• When are Stores Overstaffed?
• Building of Optimized Staffing Schedules
• Opening Hours determination
• Don’t Close Your Doors On Valuable Customers
• Eliminate Waste By Only Having Stores Open When There Is Traffic

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Calculation of the conversion rate is a straightforward process. It is calculated by counting your customers and dividing the number of sales transactions with that number. Retailers who want to understand how well their business is doing rely on this statistic to measure the effectiveness between different salespeople and branches of their business.

Another statistic often used by retailers is the average basket size. It tells management how much their customers are spending on average. One of the secrets of retail success is to keep an close eye on these statistics and try as much as possible to improve them. As the markup of items has to cover all the fixed costs and operational expenses, slight improvements in the conversion rate greatly improves operational profits. One additional

Essentially each person that walks out the door without purchasing represents lost revenue and profits. Each percentage point increase in conversion rate will multiply itself in operational profits.

Respond to market changes

Organisations that are prepared for change and embrace it as it is happening by adapting and rearranging their efforts tend to be more successful than others. To notice changes and different trends in customer purchasing behaviour companies need to be able to create and use knowledge from information and data.

That is why Peocon strives to integrate its data to virtually anything. Peocon counting data can integrate with POS systems, ERP solutions as well as datamining and BI tools. The data is very detailed and can be analysed down to five minute intervals or summarised as needed.

Knowledge is power and detailed accurate data on important retail metrics such as the conversion rate, how it evolves over time, within each day, week and year, can provide insights to gain competitive advantage.

Understanding of market trends will help organisations to focus their efforts on creating profit, optimise staffing and achieve better business results than the competition. Changes in conversion rate and average basket may indicate a market change that needs to be addressed by management.

Real-time information for Real-time reaction

By providing real time displays of important information to store personnel and management staff knows how they are performing at all times. Staff can then take measures to improve performance and reach goals set by management. By bringing the right information to the right people at the right time the organisation becomes more agile. Retail organisations that are able to notice trends as they are happening have every opportunity to ride the trend waves for a long time.

Understand Visitor Traffic Trends

Organisations that understand and are aware of the trends in visitor traffic are better equipped than others to be successful. Knowing precisely what times of the day, week or year potential customers walk in the door and trends in conversion rate over the same time period makes it easier to optimise staffing.

Optimised staffing keeps salary costs at a minimum while directing resources towards making profit. Reducing staffing at low traffic and low conversion rate periods and adding staff at high traffic high conversion rate means business will not be lost because customers are not getting the service needed while salary cost is kept at a low.

•    All the functions of PeoWeb.
•    An assigned PeoManager consultant who is both a motivator and a controller. This specialist will train the floor staff in individual stores and attend regular meetings with managers and staff, to monitor the results of use of the Peocon solutions.

PeoManager is exclusively targeted at store chains with service on the floor.
The concept of PeoManager is normally applied as a campaign that lasts for a certain period; often one to three months.

RITA, the in-store Real Time interface

The Automatic E-mail report, sent daily/weekly/monthly with newest updated data.

The PeoWeb interface itself.

People counting data is sent to the PeoWeb with down to 1 minute frequency, where it gets combined with POS data, if required. In more detail, PeoWeb includes the following (and more):
• Integration with cash register system as required
• RITA, the attention-grabbing REAL TIME Interface to be placed on a screen in-store. At any given time of the day it displays: How many visitors so far. How many left without buying. The average Conversion Rate so far. The Average Basket. A unique real-time motivator for the floor staff.
• Many different ways of viewing visitors data & visitors flow, conversion ratio, average basket, average value of visitor etc., trough time, between shifts and among stores.
• The Peocon Automatic Reports; Peocon has accumulated various metrics into selected Reports with detailed graphical interface. The client can have them sent automatically by e-mail, with updated and newest data, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. This is a widely used service by the clients of Peocon.
• Unlimited number of users. Different types of employees can have different types of access to PeoWeb. For example, a store manager may only see his own store, while the regional manager may see all the stores in his region., This includes personalised automatic e-mail reports
• Dwelling time inside the counting area.
PeoWeb is always accessible through either the Internet or an intranet.

The Peocounter counts visitors entering and exiting with an unmatched 97% accuracy, verified by GALLUP. The Peocounter also measures the flow of people through or within certain zones. The data is presented down to a 1 minute interval and up to a whole year. The data is sent from the stores to a central database with a 1 minute inverval if “Real Time” transmission is required. Otherwise we recommend data transmission every 24 hours.
To view a DEMO of the counting in progress click the following links:

- DEMO (animated gif 3MB, right-click this link to Save file)

- DEMO (40 MB, more detailed demo)

To view the GALLUP verification please click the following link:
- GALLUP verification of accuracy

RETAIL CASE STUDY

An entertainment retailer  operating a number of locations was experiencing very different business results from very similar stores. The client did not track their visitors and had no way of identifying their most valuable locations in terms of customer traffic.

SIMILAR LOCATIONS, 62% DIFFERENCE IN REVENUE

However one of  two almost identical stores outperformed the other by 62%.

Management called in the store managers to try to figure out the causes of this

difference. The worse performing manager was convinced that the other location was simply recieving more customers and therefore performing better. However after debating this situation with store managers, senior management was not

convinced that the difference was due to differences in traffic only.

DATA AND ANALYSIS CREATES KNOWLEDGE

An implementation of a Peocon counting solution proved that there were more

factors involved in this large revenue difference. Difference in customer traffic could only count for 20% of the difference in revenue.

What really was happening was that salespeople in one store were performing better than the salespeople in the other. Not only were they converting 16,7% of visitors to paying customers, compared to 13,9%, their average basket  was also 6% larger.

KNOWING WHAT TO MEASURE IS WHAT COUNTS

Peocon consultants worked closely with management on improving these

statistics.  An 8 week motivational campaign was launched to improve staff

customer interactions. Staff received weekly feedback from Peocon consultant on their progress. In 8 weeks the average conversion rate had risen a staggering 36% to a sustained level of 19%.  More revenue with the same fixed costs led to higher profit margins.

KNOWLEDGE CREATES BUSINESS VALUE

This retailer was able to learn more about the organisation and find ways of improving a business regarded as very successful. Keeping track of Key Performance Indicators and proactively using the information provided by Peocon made this possible. Counting solutions provide data that translates into valuable business knowledge. Analysing patterns in customer traffic can provide insights into the future and help organisations win over competition.

DIFFERENCES IN STAFF

PERFORMANCE DETECTED BY COUNTING CUSTOMERS

HIGHER CONVERSION RATES

LARGER AVERAGE BASKET

INCREASED SALES

HIGHER PROFITS

MORE MOTIVATION

1700% ROI

For more information:

contact sales@peacon.com

or call +354 595 3500