New Balance China Beijing Store, 15 August, 2009

State-of-the-art retail performance tracking technology from Vizualize has helped leading athletic brand, New Balance, apply a scientific approach to assessing the initial success and ongoing performance of the new China flag ship store which opened in Beijing on the 15th of August this year.

New Balance wanted to measure how the new ‘1906’ look would impact store pulling power and shopper conversion rates. Along with new product displays and featured areas, New Balance set up a Museum area and wanted to measure which areas and displays interested shoppers and whether they helped with sales conversion. In 1906, customer service levels were high and a key differentiator for successful retailers. New Balance also measured staff to shopper levels so that they could quickly respond if service levels were low.

Until recently, store design has been more of an art than a science. Vizualize’s technology integrates shopper tracking technology with computer modeling to enable retailers to adopt a more scientific approach to improving store performance.

“At New Balance, we are keen to know the full facts of our retail operations. We want to move from ‘what we think is happening’ to ‘what we know is really happening’. Gathering intelligence is a crucial aspect of this,’ said Bob Neville, Head of International Retail, New Balance Athletic shoes.

Vizualize’s suite of advanced retail intelligence technologies provides retailers such as New Balance, with unobtrusive tools to continuously measure traffic patterns, shopper engagement, customer behaviour, demographics and staff interaction. Vizualize uses a mix of small sensor technologies, including 3D, thermal vision sensors, strategically deployed throughout the store, such as entrances and displays, to gather real-time data which is integrated with sophisticated computer modeling for accurate store performance analysis. The resulting insights allow retailers to increase store capture and sales conversion through the deployment of more effective store layout, merchandising and marketing strategies as well as staff to service optimisation.

In the New Balance China store, Vizualize tracked ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ areas to determine where shoppers went most frequently, which products were drawing the most attention and whether that translated to purchase. New Balance was then able to determine the true conversion rate for potential shoppers. The performance of marketing initiatives was also measured by tracking how many people viewed the in-store promotional areas, such as the new Museum area, as well as individual product displays by measuring traffic flow and dwell time of shoppers. Outside the store, Vizualize measured how many people walked past the store versus how many people entered and, of those, how many people actually purchased something.

The information can be used successfully by New Balance to optimise its in-store merchandising, store-layout, staffing levels, media and product placement and product displays. It provides a better understanding of the layout of the store and whether it is easily navigable or if there were any choke points or areas not visited at all. As the store has several different zones, including a second story, this is crucial to the understanding of the effectiveness of the store’s design.

In addition to understanding shopper behaviour, the technology also addresses staffing issues such as whether shoppers are waiting too long for service, staff levels at high traffic areas and whether shoppers are spending too little time in-store.

“Vizualize’s solution has provided hard, facts-based retail insight which now forms the base of our international retail strategy” said Bob Neville, Head of International Retail, New Balance Athletic shoes.

“Our analytics technology is able to paint a true picture of what is going on throughout all aspects of the store, said Michael MacMillan, Managing Director of Vizualize. “Store pulling power, store conversion and location comparisons can all be measured with the objective of optimising retail strategies. More and more retailers are considering this kind of technology, recognising that understanding consumer behaviour helps build retail strategies that can convert mere interest into sales. The opportunity for increasing revenue is enormous.”