Running a brick-and-mortar store in this time of online supremacy can be tricky, particularly with the looming panic of the cost of living crisis that is plaguing the UK. However, although the high street may seem as though it is emptying, it’s still alive and well. Although there has no doubt been in a decrease in the amount of people willing to splurge, many retail stores are seeing little change in their sales according to the Office for National Statistics, with estimates showing that retail sales volume has actually increased since January.
However, one analytic that some retailers don’t even consider is footfall. Footfall is essentially the number of people that enter your store, and measuring and analysing footfall data can help you make several changes to your store that will benefit both you and your customers. Fortunately, there are plenty of tricks and tips that you can try in your store to increase footfall, plus improve the customer experience and boost your sales.
Here is our full guide on increasing footfall in retail stores!
What Is Footfall?
Retail footfall is the number of people who are entering a shop at any given time. Working out footfall in your retail shop is an essential performance indicator for measuring several KPIs, such as average shopping times and sales conversion.
How Is In-store Retail Changing?
The retail industry is constantly evolving, but with the ever-increasing popularity of online shopping, how does in-store shopping look nowadays? Understanding how the industry has evolved in just a few short years is vital to store retailers wanting to measure footfall, as knowing the buying habits of your customers can help you cultivate a better in-store shopping experience and increase the footfall traffic to your store.
Here are a few key facts that show the evolution of in-person and online shopping towards the end of 2022:
How Is In-store Retail Changing?
Although these figures may look bleak for store retailers, the opposite is actually true. Despite the fact that more people are migrating their shopping online, there are still a high number of people that prefer in-store shopping. Whether this be for food or clothing, a slight majority of people prefer being able to see and touch items in person before making a purchase. Plus, studies have shown that consumers tend to spend significantly more during in-store visits than online as more customers are likely to add additional items to their baskets when they are inside a location, like this one in Forbes.
Here are some important figures to keep in mind when considering ways to increase footfall traffic in your store:
How Has The Cost of Living Crisis Affected Retail Footfall?
Unfortunately, the cost of living crisis has affected several aspects of our everyday lives. With the amount of money people are willing to spend on common necessities let alone luxuries, should retailers be worried about how this crisis will affect their footfall and profit?
Despite some negative predictions over the last few months, the future is looking brighter than expected. With few retailers worrying about footfall and some even looking to take the place of their local competitors, many retailers don’t seem to expect the cost of living crisis affecting them as much as could be expected. However, the reality is that if people aren’t as willing to spend too much on non-essentials, local retailers can take a hit. So, if you are worried about a change in footfall in your retail store, we have some of the best advice in this article to help boost your marketing strategies above your competitors!
So, how does this bode for high street retailers? Well, quite well! Although competing with online retailers may seem difficult, with just over half of people preferring to shop in-store, there is plenty of footfall traffic that you could be encouraging into your store. But how? Let’s find out!
Why Measure Footfall Traffic In Your Store?
Measuring the amount of footfall traffic can prove extremely beneficial to the future of your store and the decisions you make. Just some benefits of measuring football traffic in your store are that the results will make it possible for you to:
● Inform staffing decisions
● Target profitable customers
● Calculate retail conversion rate
● Compare store performance
● Measure effectiveness of marketing
● Evaluate training programs
● Identify consumer trends
● Decide if/when to expand your retail store
● Identify changing patterns
● Provide a better customer experience
Read More: How To Put The Customer First
How Do You Measure Footfall?
When it comes to measuring footfall, you can choose a period of time to look at - such as every hour, every day, every week, or every year. There are several ways of measuring footfall traffic in a retail store. These include:
Using the data you gather in your footfall analysis, you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing, identify customer trends, compare your store performance, and monitor several other KPIs to influence future decisions in your store.
How To Calculate Footfall
No matter the way you choose to measure footfall, you can work out the final footfall ratio in your retail store using the below equation.
Once you have determined your footfall ratio, you will have plenty of important knowledge to help you in your store. For example, calculating and analysing footfall can help you understand what time of the day you receive the majority of your visitors, whether more customers frequent your shop during local events or activities, and the kind of journeys people take around your store. Read on to find out further uses of footfall analytics and how to make best use of them to increase the footfall in your store.
How To Increase Footfall Traffic To Your Store
Now you know how to measure footfall and the benefits of doing so, we can get stuck into how you can start increasing the footfall traffic in your store. Depending on the needs of your business and the services or products you sell, you can cater our suggestions to fit your needs. So, browse through our top tips for increasing footfall in retail stores and find ways to increase your clientele easily and quickly.
Driving In People From The High Street
Promote Deals & Demos
Just like with your window displays, enticing more footfall traffic into your retail store starts before your customers even enter the store. So, don’t limit yourself to those four walls - take your tactics out into the street with pavement signs and plenty of confidence. You could offer vouchers or discounts, demonstrations and free samples. These freebies will show people what your brand is all about, what you sell and let potential customers know where to find you if they enjoy the deals you offer.
Offer Bonuses and Offers
Offering bonuses and offers is one of the most beneficial things you can do to bring potential customers in from the high street and encourage previous customers to return. Providing offers to consumers has been proven to increase sales, build customer loyalty, help meet sales objectives and boost awareness of your brand.
Hold In-Store Events
Holding in-store events and functions is a unique way of introducing your store to new people and providing them with a helpful service. Events like fashion shows, sports events or parties are a great way of driving more foot traffic and promoting your products to potential customers.
Provide Amenities
Amenities such as wi-fi, mobile payments or the option to purchase drinks are a fantastic way to entice customers in from the high street, as these will encourage people to make good use of them and also make the customer journey easier. Modern consumer’s needs often include amenities, specifically wi-fi, and not keeping up to date with what your customers want and what your competitors are doing will be detrimental to your store.
Online & Offline Strategies
Invest In Your Socials
Social media is one of the handiest tools to reach your customer base, and if you use it wisely, you can increase in-store footfall traffic. So, get active on social media and boost the reputation of your store. There are plenty of online tricks you can make use of to drive traffic into your physical store, including advertising exclusive in-store discounts online, post engaging in-store displays and offering photo opportunities in store.
Encourage Customers To Leave Reviews
Reviews are vital to reputation and footfall traffic in your store. Hearing or reading about someone else’s positive experience in store or with products will influence others with their buying decisions. Encouraging your customers to leave reviews will influence other people to visit your store or buy certain products from you over other competitors.
Pair With Influencers
Bringing in outside reinforcements that can share and talk about your brand or store is fantastic publicity that is sure to increase interest. It will also take some of the pressure off you to market your entire store! Inviting influencers or experts to host an event in your store or pairing up with them for the long term for regular events or promotions can bring your store more visitors and increase footfall in the long term.
Encourage Location Tagging & Social Shares
Encouraging customers to share their in-store experiences on social media is some of the best publicity you can give yourself. Social networks are one of the most influential sources for potential customers finding store or purchase ideas, and providing the opportunity for people to share your store via social media worthy locations in store and the option to location tag will encourage more people to try out your store for themselves.
Convert Online Traffic To In-Store Traffic
A lot of people’s lives are contained on the internet, so investing in digital marketing is a key tool to increasing footfall in your retail store. People often turn to the internet to discover local businesses and places of interest to visit, with 46% of all Google searches seeking local information. You’ll want to put your business in front of potential customers whenever they search for your industry in the local area through a Google profile and several other tactile ideas.
Offer Click & Collect Services
Click and collect is the perfect way to merge your online and offline traffic without seeming pushy. Plus, offering click and collect services provides a convenient alternative to home delivery, as it allows customers to pick up their orders on their own schedule. Click and collect also gives you the opportunity to offer those who use the services discounts and rewards that they can redeem while picking up their order in store.
Bringing Back Past Customers
Boost Relationships With Loyalty Schemes
Loyalty schemes are the best way of increasing footfall traffic from existing customers and reducing the risk of them gravitating towards your competitors. After all, repeat customers are vital to successful business, and you should provide them with worthy recognition. No matter the type of store you own, there will be some kind of loyalty schemes you can introduce and promote to your returning customers.
Build Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty should be at the centre of any strategy to encourage your customers to return, as loyal customers are returning customers. Building trusting relationships with your customers that encourage them to return will boost your brand loyalty, sales and engagement.
Go Above and Beyond
In-store processes, layouts and service can all leave a bad taste in the mouths of customers, and one or two bad experiences can lead to them never returning. So, it’s important that you go above and beyond for every customer that walks through the door. Whether they’re looking to buy an item or make a complaint, making sure that every customer feels valued and understood through every aspect of their journey in your store will encourage them to return.
Boost Your Customer Service
Customer service is often a sore spot with customers, and feeling as though they were not understood may lead to your customers finding somewhere else to go. Making sure that your customer service processes are tip top and ensuring that all customers leave your store feeling as though their issues were solved properly will show them that you are a brand they can trust and will encourage them to return.
Keep Your In-Store Experience Tip Top
The in-store experience is the perception that customers receive while going through the process of purchasing from a store, and it’s one of the most important things that brick-and-mortar stores have over online retailers. In store, customers can see and feel the products they are buying, and the entire journey through your shop influences their decision. This is why you must have a fantastic in-store experience. With immersive elements that engage the senses and a friendly atmosphere, you can encourage customers to return again and again.
Leverage Mobile Numbers
Many people never leave the house without their phones, and leveraging your customers' mobile numbers can have a large impact on your store’s footfall. By sending out non-intrusive text reminders of relevant events, activities or codes for your store, you can encourage previous customers to return.
Visual Merchandising
Create An Eye-Catching Shop Front
The shop front is likely the first thing that people will see of your retail store, so you have to make it eye-catching! Whether this means creating seasonal displays, including pop culture references in your window or setting up noticeable and unique signage, such as snap frames or chalkboards, for passers-by to stop and admire, you must put together a unique shop front to give the right impression to potential customers.
Read More: How To Create An Eye-Catching Window Display
Invest In Your Store’s Signage
Adding additional eye-catching elements is often the best way to catch the attention of passers-by, and nothing achieves this like store signage. A simple and affordable solution, choosing signs that pop and placing them in easy to spot areas both inside and outside your store will entice people into your store and to certain products.
Update Your In-Store Merchandising
Working with your in-store merchandising and marketing plans to tailor them to your customers and their needs as well as your sales goals will help increase footfall and eventual sales. If you are able to tweak your in-store merchandising to promote your best or most useful products, you will encourage more potential customers to check out your store.
Add Eye-Catching Accessories Outside Your Store
Like signage, adding eye-catching accessories outside your store will help it get noticed. With an intriguing window display and a clever in-store layout, potential customers will be encouraged into your store in no time! Fortunately, there are plenty of accessories that you could consider setting up outside your store, so make sure to choose one that represents the atmosphere you want to create.
Local Marketing Strategies
Improve Your Local Presence
Letting the locals know about your shop and what you do is vital to your business. After all, local people will likely be the majority of your consumers. So, make sure that your store has a recognisable local presence and is easy to find for locals and tourists alike.
Partner With Local Companies
Although you may be reluctant to pair up with any other store in your local area in case of competition, not every business in the area is your competitor. In fact, you may be able to benefit from partnerships with local companies. Consider ways you can reach new customers in your target audience through other related businesses in your area. For example, if you sell records, you could ask a local musical instrument shop if you can put leaflets or business cards by their point of sale, and offer to do the same for them.
Celebrate Local Events
Taking part in and celebrating local events is a great way to market to local people and tourists who are in tow for the event. Whether a large football game is scheduled, an anticipated movie is being shown at the cinema or a show is on at the theatre, there are things you can do and offer to encourage people into your store.
Internal Marketing Strategies
Revisit Your Business Plan
It won’t be beneficial to work to increase footfall traffic if you’re not confident in what you are offering potential customers. Although getting plenty of customers through the door can seem beneficial at first, it will not work out in the long term if they don’t find what they are looking for and don’t come back. So, if you don’t see an increase in footfall traffic, consider revisiting your business plan, research what your competitors are doing and look for gaps in the market where you can evolve your offerings to provide something new or different to your customers.
Improve Your Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management (or CRM) is a strategy you should be cultivating to manage interactions with past, current and potential customers. Investing in your CRM will help to streamline the processes of your business, increase sales and build customer relationships in the long term.
Analysing Footfall Data
Once you have worked out your footfall ratio and collected all your data, you can put that data to good use in your store. Here are just some ways that you can use footfall analytics to help improve your store:
Additionally, you may have already noticed that many of our tips on increasing footfall in retail stores include similar suggestions. For example, offering discounts is listed under driving in people from the high street, online & offline strategies and bringing past customers back. What this shows is that you should be using these strategies in conjunction with each other. Coming up with a detailed plan for increasing footfall should include several of our suggested strategies to support each other and encourage people to discover and enter your shop through several different channels.
Sources
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