The More Customers Walk Your Store, the More Your Space Is Worth

By capturing and measuring shopper traffic and impressions in real-time, brick-and-mortar retailers can apply data-driven strategies to quantify areas inside their stores.

This post was originally published on The Robin Report on August 7, 2022.

By George Shaw, Founder and CEO of Pathr.ai

Location, location, location. How many times have we heard this when measuring the intrinsic value for a property? In shopping malls, location is everything for any store focused on attracting the maximum number of shoppers. If a store is sited in a high-traffic area, chances are more shoppers will enter that store to browse its products. Leasing teams equipped with Spatial Intelligence technology can quantify the relative value of each location based on foot traffic and impressions in real-time, placing value on their leasing strategies through a data-driven approach.

Let’s take this same concept of location value and apply it to big-box retail and grocery stores. Shop-in-shops have emerged to attract new customers and improve their experience inside big-box retail stores. For example, brands compete for prime shelf space in grocery stores to display their products. There’s money to be made when big-box retailers and grocers leverage shopper impression data to set lease terms and slotting fees, leading to greater purchase transparency and ultimately more profitability.

At Pathr.ai, our Spatial Intelligence solution provides real-time, granular visibility into the movements of shoppers as they navigate shop-in-shops and grocery aisles. Why does this matter? Retailers can leverage these data insights into more profitability from product placement to shop-in-shop leases.

The Impact of Shop-in-Shops

Evolving consumer behaviors have compelled physical retailers to find new ways to adapt and stay relevant today. Many retailers have activated the popular concept of shop-in-shops where brick-and-mortar retailers provide a brand an independent space inside their stores. Data reveals that this in-store experience drives additional traffic and sales, prompting shoppers to spend more time and money inside a store.

Let’s take a deeper look at how this works. Retailers may charge higher rents in certain places in the store depending on the amount of shopper traffic and impressions from those locations. By anonymously capturing shopper movement as people navigate into and out of a shop-in-shop, retailers can better understand the full business impact of traffic to benchmark rents for each area. This data-driven approach empowers retailers to leverage Pathr.ai’s solution and incorporate insights learned into their leasing strategies. It’s a win/win; brands profit from better exposure, retailers strengthen their relationships with the brands, and consumers are attracted by popular brands offering an experience.

With Spatial Intelligence at hand, retailers can measure shopper impressions and set in-store rates accordingly to mirror online impressions. Let’s consider a brick-and-mortar retailer that leases a part of their store to an electronics brand. Not only is this brand showcasing their products, but they’re also creating an experience for shoppers offering the highest customer service, filled with product demos and technical on-site support.

Equipped with Spatial Intelligence, the host retailer can measure the flow and movement patterns of shoppers in this shop-in-shop, determining the appropriate rent this shop-in-shop warrants due to increased traffic.

Spatial Intelligence is a transparent solution that allows a retailer to monetize the value of the showroom (physical space) they’re providing to manufacturers, independent of sales. Therefore, the store becomes a monetizable marketing vehicle, with shopper impressions the stock in trade. This isn’t a new idea, since one of the world’s foremost retail industry futurists Doug Stephens introduced this years ago, but the technology to make it happen wasn’t ready to scale until now. Pathr.ai introduces a scalable solution for retailers to acquire granular insights into their shopper behavior by leveraging their existing camera infrastructure across a fleet of stores.

Validate Demand for Your Brand

When you walk between the aisles of a grocery store browsing the various products on the shelves, you may not realize that there is a reason for their placement. Behind the scenes, grocers and brands negotiate slotting fees, a one-time or recurring payment brands pay to place their products on shelves. Grocers focused on increasing profits inside their stores can turn to Spatial Intelligence to understand shopper behavior within aisles, departments, and endcaps to accurately set rates for their shelf space.

Capturing shopper traffic, dwell, and conversion rates in aisles and endcaps can reveal category insights that grocers were previously unaware of. These insights can lead them to benchmark rates for premium displays or shelf spots at their store. Grocers can become empowered to make informed and data-driven decisions that have a direct ROI impact on every shelf and overall store performance.

Let’s take a closer look at this concept. A major grocer is evaluating its shelving rates for their cereal aisle. Leveraging Pathr.ai’s Spatial Intelligence insights, the grocer can quantify the location value based on how long shoppers stand in front of an aisle or pass an endcap for maximum sales. When negotiating with brands for their cereal product placements, the grocer can connect location impact with shopper traffic and dwell times to better set their leasing strategies to profit from the attention of shoppers.

Spatial Intelligence has ushered a new way of determining location value within retail stores. By capturing and measuring shopper traffic and impressions in real-time, brick-and-mortar retailers can apply a data-driven strategy to quantify areas inside their stores. Whether it’s targeted for shop-in-shop areas or shelf spaces along aisles, these businesses can increase ROI for their physical locations to ensure profitable growth with Spatial Intelligence.

Note: Pathr.ai is a Robin Report Innovator. Check out more about their solution here and connect with them to learn how they can help you increase profit and value across your fleet of retail stores.