Footfall

Eight out of ten purchase decisions are made in the store, in front of the shelf, not before; that is what an American study of around three thousand shoppers measured. Footfall therefore stands not only in front of the store entrance but in front of every category, and every category has its own rate at which visitors become buyers. Cortex counts the visitors in front of the area and places the sell-through of the same hour next to it: conversion per zone, revenue per visitor, revenue per square meter. What looks like a good day in the store total thus breaks down into areas that carry their weight and areas that only have footfall.

An area with high footfall and no receipts looks like any other in the daily report, because the report only knows revenue, not the people who stood in front of it. Cortex reads zone footfall, dwell time and category revenue in the same time grid and calculates conversion where the shelf stands, not at the store entrance. The category that attracts many and convinces few thus becomes a question instead of an average.

Sales floor

The planogram states how the goods should be arranged and how the customer should find them; whether they do is only shown on the sales floor. Cortex places footfall and dwell time at the shelf next to the category’s revenue and calculates revenue per shelf meter, facing by facing. Where customers stop and do not reach, or reach without stopping, the placement does not match the behavior, and the planogram gets a number against which it can be measured.

A secondary placement costs space, handling and promotional pricing, and after the promotion, rarely does anyone know what was left of it. Cortex measures traffic and dwell time at the display against the revenue of the previous weeks and against the stores without a display, and names the revenue attributable to the placement. Research gives placement the greatest lever on the unplanned purchase; which placement has it in this store is what the measurement tells.

The assortment guideline comes from headquarters and applies equally to all stores; local demand does not. Cortex compares the sell-through per item and store with the guideline and adds the local category footfall: which shelf meter gets too much space here and which too little, where write-offs point to too much assortment and gaps to too little. A new product is measured not only by unit sales but by the number of customers who stood in front of it, so that the listing depends on the impact on the shelf and not on a number without context.

Basket

Footfall and conversion can be right, and the receipt still stays below what the sales floor can deliver. Cortex reads the receipt data against footfall: average receipt, items per receipt, margin per visitor, per zone and time of day. The basket thus becomes a figure that can be managed per location, instead of one that you learn about at the end of the month.

The customer buys the core item and does not reach the complementary category, because it is at the other end of the store or because nothing leads them there. Cortex places the category transitions from the paths next to the item combinations from the receipts and shows which cross-selling the sales floor prevents and which it could enable. The answer is a placement, a message on the screen or a promotion at the point where the path breaks off.

Proof

Every action on the sales floor gets a baseline: the previous weeks, the stores without the action, the structurally similar comparison stores. Cortex calculates the revenue that goes beyond the baseline and separates it from the revenue that was merely shifted, from the neighboring category or from the next week. What remains is the incremental revenue that justifies space and handling, or does not.

Revenue per shelf meter and per visitor is tracked over time, location by location, and every measured impact yields the rule for the next area. Across the network, it becomes clear which category convinces too little everywhere and which only here, which placement can be repeated and which was a peculiarity of the location. Conversion thus changes from a metric of the store entrance to a metric of every area that can be planned, compared and improved.