5 Tools That Bring Web-Like Analytics to Offline Locations

It isn’t chance that e-commerce retailers like Amazon are generating billions of dollars in online sales. Digital commerce businesses are utilizing big data analytics to measure shopper behavior, click-through rates, and page views when designing their online sales outposts. Now, offline retailers with brick-and-mortar stores are getting their very own big data tools.

By bringing web analytics into the offline world, merchants can analyze shopper visit data and learn about the behavior and movement of customers in their stores. This data can then be used to optimize the shopping experience, grow key customer segments, and measure the impact that mobile campaigns are having on foot traffic in real-time. Here are five hyperlocal vendors bringing web-style analytics into the real world.

1. Placed: Make informed business decisions based on location.
Placed Insights measures 70 million locations a day and uses the data it collects to provide insight into offline consumer behavior and preferences. Merchants are able to see how macro and micro-level events impact their shoppers’ in-store activities, and they can use the data they generate to drive new customers and increase sales from existing customers. Retailers can also use Placed to measure the offline impact of their mobile marketing efforts. Placed Insights uses a subscription pricing model.

2. Welllcome: Bringing online analytics tools into the offline world.
Installing Welllcome’s sensors in their stores gives retailers a way to detect the movement of customers (with smartphones) both inside and outside their establishments. Retailers can find out how many people have entered their stores, what their conversion rates are, and how their marketing promotions are performing. Welllcome also breaks down its data to let retailers know the average visit duration, bounce rates (people who walk by without coming inside), loyalty rates, and most common smartphone types. Welllcome charges a setup fee, which includes a sensor, along with a “small monthly fee” to get access to its statistics dashboard.

3. Euclid: Optimize foot traffic using existing Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Quick-service restaurants, coffee shops, specialty retail, and large format stores can use information from their existing Wi-Fi infrastructures, or Euclid’s plug-and-play sensors, to get a better understanding of how customers are behaving in their stores. Euclid offers its users access to traffic counts and capture and bounce rates, along with visit frequency and duration data. Retailers can identify weak points in their shopping experience, and they can find out how holidays or local events are impacting walk-by traffic. Small businesses with fewer than 10 stores (and an existing in-store Wi-Fi network) can start using Euclid Zero for free.

4. ShopperTrak: Uncover hidden sales opportunities.
ShopperTrak provides retailers with “anonymous, consistent and accurate” traffic counts, combined with video analytics, using in-store location technology. Retailers can find out how long shoppers are staying in their stores, how often they’re coming back, which sections or aisles they’re visiting, and how each department is converting. They can also understand their staff performance challenges, and get insight into shopper demographics. ShopperTrak’s reporting platform provides retailers with insights based on the data they collect. ShopperTrak operates on an SaaS model and charges retailers a monthly fee.

5. RetailNext: Collect 10,000 data points per visitor.
RetailNext turns video surveillance cameras, POS systems, Wi-Fi, and RFID tags into sources for shopper data. The platform provides analytics to brick-and-mortar businesses, combining shopper behavior information with weather and local events data. This information can then be used to fine tune staffing schedules, store designs, and product availability. RetailNext can also be used for people counting, loss prevention, and merchandising. Retailers with more than one location can view data by region or on a store-by-store basis. RetailNext offers variable pricing based on the size of the retailer and the specific features/services the retailer uses. Retailers can expect to pay an upfront cost to cover hardware and software licenses, along with a monthly service fee.

Know of other tools that retailers can use to generate big data analytics at physical locations? Leave a description in the comments.

Stephanie Miles is an associate editor at Street Fight.