The Covid-19 pandemic has changed consumer behavior in a number of ways, and as a result, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) became more resilient in the post-pandemic era and a lot more technology-friendly.
These enterprises are more vulnerable to unexpected changes compared to larger corporations, but they’re also more flexible and responsive; leveraging innovative technologies like people counting systems can help them persist and grow considerably as a business. The real question is how knowing foot traffic in physical spaces can help and if this technology is worth investing in. Both cases can be answered with a simple yes.
An accurate customer counting system will provide you with actionable insights and help you strengthen your supply chains, retain customers, and even improve your customer relationships. However, a “not-so-accurate” one may even harm your business in the long run. Coming up with a strategy that works “for your retail store” requires a number of unique solutions only a selected few can offer. Sadly, the majority of these solutions are either too expensive for small to medium-sized businesses or lack certain key features that make them useful for physical store owners.
What is People Counting? Can It Really Help Your Business?
People counting is exactly what it sounds like: counting people who enter and exit physical stores. It can be challenging to determine ways to increase foot traffic in physical spaces without reliable data and choosing the wrong product will only make things worse.
People counting is becoming increasingly important for businesses and tracking your visitors can help your business run more efficiently, make better data-driven decisions, and improve customer service. It can even unveil problems you didn’t know existed and provide you with information that makes a difference to fix whatever issues holding you back.
Simply put, making informed business decisions requires an understanding of footfall visitor traffic in your retail stores, and our latest tech Ultima Go bundled with our in-house Business Intelligence Platform (BIP) provides over 200 KPIs such as In & Out People Counting, Sales vs. Traffic Comparison, Conversion Rate, Shopper Yield, Visitors per M2 to improve various aspects of your physical space.
Ultima Go: Cost-Effective People Counting Solution
Gone are the days when only large companies could afford people counting systems, analyze their customer behavior thoroughly, and get ahead of the competition. We designed Ultima Go with small and medium businesses in mind and made sure it’s quick and simple to set up.
Ultima Go is powered with the state of the art AI technology and offers up to 99.9% people counting accuracy. It can count people all day, even under harsh weather conditions (from 0° to 45° C) or when there’s no light at all, thanks to its Active 3D Stereo Vision technology.
Calling Ultima Go completely invisible would be a bit of a stretch, but it’s only 3.1cms thick; you won’t find a thinner sensor out there. You can start using Ultima Go almost immediately, its plug-and-play system allows for an easy and fast installation, plus it can link via cellular connection, eliminating the need for network cables.
All V-Count products are fully GDPR compliant, meaning no face or personal data is ever collected. We count anonymously to ensure privacy.
Ultima Go is more than just a next-gen people counting sensor. Our competitively priced technology includes a customizable visitor analytics software developed by us and it has over 200 KPIs like Conversion Rate, Traffic Rate, Average Transaction Value, and more to help you make data-driven high-profit decisions. Ultima Go combines all of these features while remaining cost-effective, so any store can take advantage of it.
It can be a bit scary and difficult to invest in technology for your store at first, especially if you’re new to all of this. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Feel free to reach out to us for a demo and our people-counting experts will advise you on which solutions will work best for your store.
People Counting Solutions and Add-Ons For Small and Medium Businesses
No matter how large or small your business is, if you don’t invest in the right technology, you won’t be able to keep up and stay afloat, let alone improve your business. For instance, in the recent past businesses that reacted quickly to changes brought about by social media platforms thrived, while those who reacted slowly… Well, they’re mostly gone now. Make sure to leverage your most valuable asset – data – and listen to what your store tells you.
Although people counting has been available for some time now, most SMEs couldn’t afford it, until recently. Ultima Go breaks all entry barriers to make high-quality people counting affordable for all types of retail stores.
Counting the number of people entering and leaving your store alone won’t get you any meaningful insights though. That’s why we bundle Ultima Go with our exceptional Business Intelligence Platform, it plays a crucial role in addressing the unique challenges your business faces with four key solutions and even more optional add-ons. Here are some of them and how they can help you improve your business and generate more revenue:
Ultima Go Solutions and Add-Ons
People Counting
V-Count provides a world-class solution for people counting. You can analyze foot traffic, make data-driven decisions, and increase revenue with our easy-to-use people counter and powerful e-commerce analytics platform.
Below are some of the add-ons you can also pick up and see how they can help you improve your business and generate more revenue:
Real-time Occupancy
Measuring footfall traffic accurately in real-time is an excellent way to enhance customer satisfaction and improve employee productivity. BIP stores all this historical data to help you identify the peak shopping hours or days in your store, and use it to plan campaigns during these periods and make staff allocations accordingly.
Child & Adult Differentiation
Ultima Go can differentiate adults and children with high accuracy. Customer behavior can change drastically based on age, and in most cases, adults do the actual shopping and bring in more revenue. Ultima Go allows you to measure conversion rates more accurately and healthily by separating your visitors into adults and children.
Group Counting
Most of the people counting sensors on the market are using outdated technologies. They count people entering a store together as one customer, and they end up collecting inaccurate data. Considering how these old-school sensors fail at differentiating a group from a person, the most basic bit of people counting, one can’t expect them to track the customer journey of a group of people like families, a group of friends, or couples.
The shopper journey changes significantly in packs, hence detecting groups of customers is essential. In most cases, only one person in a group does the shopping, and the rest tag along. The Ultima Go sensor recognizes crowds moving together and counts them as one customer.
Lost Sales Opportunities
Using your traffic statistics, you can compare them to customer transactions to determine how many sales opportunities you have missed. This data can help you discover insights that will help you convert more visitors into customers.
BIP provides an easy-to-track chart that shows when and under what conditions you’re missing sales opportunities. This KPI will help you determine the cause of the missing sales and provide you with actionable insights.
Does Your Retail Need All These Traffic Counting Solutions?
In short, no. That’s why BIP can be customized to suit the specific needs of your store. For SMEs looking to thrive in a competitive market, Ultima Go and BIP are the perfect combination. Ultima Go collects all the data you need and sends it to BIP for analysis. Here, you can customize your dashboard and use the solutions that will benefit your business the most.
Their powers combined, Ultima Go and BIP can accurately differentiate children and adults, detect groups, give you all the insights you need about the customer journey, and more. Which solutions you need depends on the type of business you’re running and of course your goals. We’re here to help you figure out exactly which solutions you need. Reach out to us and we’ll get you started.
Turn potential customers into regulars and maximize profits
While this challenge may seem daunting at first, it isn’t impossible, especially if you have accurate and actionable data about your store and your customers. Ultima Go and BIP will be your best friends to turn customers into regulars once you discover their true power. Each store has unique needs, but luckily our experts are always ready to help you out, don’t be shy to reach out to us.
Identifying your retail store’s strengths and weaknesses is easier once you know which BIP solutions and KPIs are appropriate for your analysis. Ultima Go can give you insights into your employees’ performance as well as tell you how your store performs at any time of day. It can give you crucial insights into the customer journey, from planning to shopping.
Transforming a visitor into a customer, and then into a regular is all about understanding the needs and wants of the customer, and Ultima Go gives you the tools to discover exactly that.
