A national retail chain operating 85 stores was struggling with declining foot traffic conversion rates and had no reliable method to measure actual customer engagement. Traditional people counters at entrances provided inaccurate numbers, counting staff and repeat entries as unique visitors. Store managers lacked visibility into which zones attracted the most attention, where customers spent the longest time, and why certain product displays underperformed despite high traffic areas.
Aptibit implemented Visylix across all 85 stores, deploying unique person counting, heat map analytics, and customer journey tracking. Each store received a standardized camera layout optimized for analytics coverage. The Visylix retail dashboard provided store managers with daily reports on unique visitor counts, zone performance heat maps, dwell time analysis, and conversion funnel metrics. Regional directors gained a centralized view comparing store performance across the entire chain.
Measurable Impact
Technologies Used
The Challenge: Flying Blind in Retail
The retail chain had invested heavily in store renovations and marketing campaigns, but had no data driven way to measure their impact on actual customer behavior. Traditional infrared beam counters at store entrances were producing inflated numbers by counting every entry event, including staff movements, delivery personnel, and the same customer walking in and out multiple times.
Without accurate footfall data, conversion rate calculations were fundamentally flawed. Store managers could not tell whether a 10% sales increase was due to more customers or better selling, making it impossible to optimize staffing, store layout, or promotional placements based on evidence.
The chain needed a solution that could provide truly unique visitor counts, reveal how customers moved through the store, identify which displays and zones drove engagement, and deliver all of this through an intuitive dashboard accessible to non technical store managers.
The Solution: Intelligence at Every Aisle
Aptibit retail analytics team designed a standardized camera deployment plan for each store format, ensuring complete coverage of entrances, key product zones, checkout areas, and promotional displays. Visylix unique person counting model used advanced re identification technology to track individuals across camera views without storing any biometric data, ensuring privacy compliance.
Heat map analytics provided a visual overlay showing exactly where customers spent time, walked through quickly, or congregated. Dwell time analysis revealed which product displays held attention and which were being ignored. Customer journey maps showed the most common paths through the store, enabling managers to optimize product placement along high traffic routes.
All analytics data flowed into a purpose built retail dashboard. Store managers received automated morning reports highlighting the previous day key metrics, while regional directors could compare performance across all 85 locations with drill down capabilities.
Data Driven Store Optimization
Armed with accurate analytics, the retail chain embarked on a systematic store optimization program. Heat map data revealed that several high margin product categories had been placed in low traffic zones. By relocating these displays to areas with naturally high footfall, the chain saw immediate sales lifts in those categories.
Dwell time analysis identified checkout bottlenecks during peak hours. The chain adjusted staffing schedules based on actual traffic patterns rather than estimates, reducing average queue wait times by 40%. This improvement alone contributed significantly to the overall conversion lift, as customers who previously abandoned their shopping due to long queues now completed their purchases.
Measurable Business Impact
Within the first quarter of full deployment, the retail chain measured a 34% improvement in footfall to purchase conversion rates across all stores. This improvement was driven by three factors: better product placement informed by heat maps, optimized staffing based on traffic patterns, and targeted promotional displays positioned along high engagement customer journey paths.
Unique visitor counting accuracy reached 99.2%, giving the marketing team reliable data to measure campaign effectiveness for the first time. The chain could now directly correlate advertising spend with actual store visits and purchases, leading to a 22% revenue increase attributed to analytics driven decisions.
The project established a new operating standard for the retail chain. Every new store opening now includes a Visylix analytics deployment from day one, and quarterly "optimization sprints" using Visylix data have become a core part of the retail operations playbook.
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