Footfall is footfall

Footfall counters provide fantastic data; they tell you whether you are up or down year on year. If the system is clever it can tell you if your traffic is mid-morning, lunch time or afternoon and if it is really clever it can tell you where traffic is coming from. However, beyond that it remains just data. A point on a chart, a statistic a number however, each point is something more; it’s a customer, a client a shopper.

Turning this traffic into loyal shoppers is the cheapest and most efficient method of maintaining profit in these uncertain times.

Doing that means we need to understand who these shoppers are and how we can target them. Convention says that we should look at how old these people are, how much they earn and most importantly where they live. But put that into context, think about where you live, is everyone on your street the same? Do you go to the same places on holiday? Do you all drive the same car? Do you all dress the same? Herein lays the problem of geo-demographic based models of consumer behaviour, the assumption is if you live in a certain street you think in a certain way. If you earn a certain amount you behave in a certain way and if you’re the same age you do the same things.

In a world overflowing with choice these assumptions are no longer valid, they herald from a time when Spain was the only choice for holidaymakers and model-T’s only came in black. Now we choose based on what we, as individuals want, be it adventure, relaxation, culture or safety the choice is ours and that choice is based on our values and beliefs.  It is these self-perceptions that dictate our spending habits. The proliferation of retail over the last 15 years has seen consumer choice rocket. This is in part both caused and fuelled by our desire to outwardly display who we are by the purchase decisions we make - even if that desire is one to camouflage ourselves amongst the herd.  

When we choose to use one supermarket over another or one fashion brand or another or even one city over another then each choice is guided and based on our values and beliefs. Think about it, is there a supermarket you tend to go to most often? If so have you thought about why? It could be that the one you go to is on the way home and so you see it as convenient and nothing more. It could however, be that rather than going to your nearest Supermarket you fight through traffic on a Friday night or brave the queues on a Saturday morning to get to your supermarket. Both of these scenarios are based on your views of yourself. The first is that the supermarket I use is not that important to me to go out of my way. The second is that the supermarket I use is important and I’m willing to go to some effort to get to it.

These values and beliefs can be identified and targeted within a shopper population. Whether that be at a top level catchment level or drilled down to in store . From there people can be targeted not by how much they earn or by where they live but by how they think and most importantly how they behave.

Emotional Logic has over 5 years experience of helping retailers and shopping centres understand what drives shoppers to make these choices and has developed a bespoke retailer segmentation based upon values and beliefs that provides the framework around which strategies to turn data points into loyal shoppers can be built.

Doesn’t that seem like a better choice?