Wow! That's Cool!

How Department Stores Check What Sells

How effective is a certain kind of presentation, or particular advertising campaign?
What affects clients and consumers?

It's very interesting for large department stores to see what attracts customers most. Is it a talking vendor with a microphone? Colourful advertising with low prices? Attractive hostesses?

Does music, fragrances or colours persuade customers to buy? Or is a more sterile environment without any music better? To get the answers, it's not enough just to check your sales volume at the end of the day.

Many customers notice the way a store is doing marketing and then come back because of new attractions, while others just come back because of the products. It is important how the costumers get attracted by the special offers.
Often customers are just counted - a labour intensive method which doesn't provide the necessary information.

Reliable data about customers can be gathered via light barriers which are hooked up to micro computers. The number of customers is counted and then sent to a central unit via GSM. Here the data is gathered and analyzed giving an exact overview about the response to special marketing techniques and product presentation.

Through customer interviews the gathered data can then be defined and further analyzed. The conclusion of the analysis then helps the marketing department see what kind of presentation was the most profitable.