Footfall counting to improve visitor’s experience

Footfall counting is about counting all people coming in and out of a specific area or space such as a shopping mall, museum or a train station. This data provides enormous amounts of useful information to base operational and strategic business decisions on. It is key here that the collected data is both consistent and reliable and that analysis and interpretation of the results is done correctly. 

The benefits of footfall counting

One of the main drivers of footfall counting, especially in Retail, is increasing sales and driving up profits. This is not the only benefit. For many locations that are used to receiving a lot of visitors it is incredibly useful to get insight in current occupancy levels, queuing times and peak visitor times. Monitoring how busy it is and what route visitors mostly take will give insights in the popularity of specific areas. Actions can thus be taken accordingly to maximise efficiency.   

How to measure footfall?

It doesn’t matter whether you own a shop, a shopping mall or a museum, if you want to make smart business decisions you need high quality footfall data. Footfall can be counted using a variety of devices such as 3D stereoscopic counters, Wi-Fi / Bluetooth counters, infrared beam counters or thermal counters. Measuring footfall and analysing the results allows you to focus on key areas to improve at your location.

Case: PFM Footfall Intelligence and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam was founded in 1874 and is devoted to being a place where everyone can discover and experience modern and contemporary art and design. The museum hosts many exhibitions and presentations. They asked PFM Footfall Intelligence, a company specialised in people counting and related data science, to provide real-time insights into visitor numbers in a specific room in the museum. PFM offered a solution including real-time data and a clear dashboard. The implemented footfall system ensures the maximum number of visitors cannot be exceeded due to the protection of the art and the safety of the visitors. A dynamic web portal was set up in which the number of people could be accurately tracked on different devices and at any time during the day. As the SMA dashboard was located at the cash registers, it was easy to temporarily stop selling tickets when necessary. On top of this, insights into the total number of visitors that visited in a day were visible. At the end of the day, the solution offered by PFM offered tremendously important insights into footfall movement in the museum.