Basic Steps to Install the Video Counting System at an Object

1) CHOOSING THE NUMBER OF SENSORS ACCORDING TO PROJECT
The basic parameters for choosing the number of sensors to fit the entrance area are the width of the entrance group, its height and expected traffic.

For clarity the entrance groups, widely spread in shopping centers and boutiques, can be divided into three categories: A – not wide, up to three meters, B – wide, from 4 to 7 meters, and C- super wide stairwells from 7 meters and wider.
А – not wide entrance groups, up to three meters wide, are very common for shopping centers and small stores. One video counter kit is quite sufficient for such entrance groups – the customer traffic at such objects ranges within 200 – 1000 people a day, and one sensor is more than enough to count the traffic here.

Installation height varies from 2.5 to 5 meters.

B – Wide entrance groups, from 4 to 7 meters wide, with small customer traffic. They are very common for not large shopping centers with ceiling height of 3 to 4 meters. In case of expected traffic of 400 people a day one counting area will be absolutely sufficient to cover the whole entrance group with one video counter.

B' – Wide entrance areas of 4 to 7 meters wide with high customer traffic. They are common for large shopping malls with expected traffic of 400 people and more. In order to increase the counting accuracy at such entrance groups it is a good practice to install two video counters as shown in the diagrams below.

C - Super wide stairwells from 7 meters and wider are common for large entrance areas of shopping malls. In this case the video counters are installed each 3 … 3.5 meters and grouped by means of intelligent grouping into one large counting area of 4 to 70 meters wide.

2) INSTALLATION PLACE RECOMMENDATIONS
The video counter is maintenance-friendly both when it is installed at a high angle to the horizontal and within the minimum operating area of counting, but if you can install the sensor in the right way initially, then we encourage you to comply with the following recommendations, which will help increase the counting accuracy:

For efficient counting the video sensor is to be installed within the area where:

-  customer traffic is distributed in the best way

-  action of sunlight is minimized

-  in-swing door does not interfere with the work of sensor

-  camera view does not reach the entrance door

-  video counter will be downward directed - the insignificant misalignment or inclination is admissible in case the customer traffic grasped by the counting area is not high.

Here is the illustration of the wrong choice of video counter installation place – almost half of the video counter operation area is occupied by the wall:


Here is the illustration of the wrong choice of video counter installation place – almost half of the video counter operation area is occupied by the door and thermal screen


Here is the illustration of the wrong choice of video counter installation place – video sensor view includes the wall and the lamp, besides the sensor is inclined at a high angle to the horizontal.


Here is the illustration of the wrong choice of video counter installation place – the sensor view includes the glass door and the in-swing door

It doesn’t mean therefore that the system won’t work in such circumstances. The Ufatech counters allow to keep counting in a complex environment, and such location of counters is admissible though not desirable. Everything depends on the tolerance level you are ready to accept as a result. For example the tolerance level for the aforementioned counters will be of 5 to 7 percent. For some clients these values are quite acceptable, and for the others they are impossible. 

3) VIDEO COUNTER INSTALLATION AND CONNECTION
The video sensor kit includes everything one needs for installation. So as to connect the sensor one should lay a twisted-pair wire from switch board router to the entrance group. The sensor is powered up according to PoE technology.

- Installation Master Diagram for Most Objects with Sensor Connection via PoE Injector

- If there is a PoE switch at the object the connection diagram will look in the following way:

- In case the counter is installed in a mall or a store with several entrances the PoE switch can be used.

It is a good practice to use the off-the-rack patch cords as wires. In such a way you will save crimping time and minimize the risk of the wrong crimping of cable caps.
If the crimping cable is used, the crimping is made according to the direct diagram.

4) CAMERA VIEW AND ANGLE CHECK
After the sensor is installed and connected, one should check the camera angle and view using the counter interface.

Examples of the properly installed video counters:

Today customer traffic statistics is collected by most companies of retail market. Such information allows to track the customer activity and to be quick on the mark to increase the company efficiency. The customer counters, installed at entrance areas of stores and shopping centers, provide valuable information on traffic dynamics and make it possible to analyze the factors, influencing the changes in this parameter.

The customer counters without data analytics, which don’t allow centralized store traffic data acquisition and don’t provide the company with information automatically, can’t be considered to be solutions to complete some serious tasks. Such calculator counters demonstrate the customer traffic data at one point at best, and they don’t provide data on visiting time, and here the personnel reliability plays a major role. In general one can say that these counters don’t cost even those hundred dollars they are priced at.

Most customer counting systems, offered by the market, include data processing software, this being reasonable, as there are projects, embracing 400 counting areas and more. In this case information from each object is processed automatically and the ready report represents structured data, depending on counting time and location. Such data processing can be carried out in different ways – some integrators offer the access to web-analytics, the others send reports in the form of weekly brochures, and the third provide software shell for statistics demonstration.

When developing the customer counting system, the UFATECH company considered the fact, that different companies need different solutions for data processing. For those who choose off-the-shelf products the Statistica complex with a wide range of analytical instruments was created. If you prefer obtaining data through browser of the device, connected to Internet, then you can choose the MegaCount Web-Module – it doesn’t require software installation at work areas. For companies, using home data bases and CRM systems, the UFATECH engineers have developed the programmable data upload, making the traffic statistics integration into corporate system an easy job.

Customer Traffic Data Upload in the UFATECH Counting System

The Statistica software complex provides a toolbox for working with structured data, concerning traffic in each counting area. The functional reports can be adjusted according to user needs, the time interval to be set on one’s own account, data intervals being from 10 minutes up to one year.

UFATECH WEB is a module for data management through the browser of the Internet connected device. Using the adjusted web-module the company employees will be able to browse the store traffic statistics from any device with Internet access.

CRM Integration implies automated upload of statistics (customer traffic data) into corporate data base. This option allows to define the first key retail measures, being sales conversion, which gives the company a chance to evaluate the efficiency of each sales outlet.

The programmable data upload can be adjusted through the video counter web interface and makes it possible to combine the UFATECH equipment with customer counting systems, produced by other manufacturers.

In the context of modern retail market oversaturation and high competition business development is usually related to poaching clients from other companies. In order to be ahead of the curve retailers and shopping centers should be able to adjust quickly to constantly changing customer behavior.

The most important task for retail business is to understand the direction of market changes. We live in fascinating times and watch new technologies come into being. At the same time some fears can’t but come to one’s mind:

- What will be important for customers in half a year?

- What trends will involve more investments in the future?

- How will the digital technologies influence the traffic in physical stores?

Despite the inconsistent and unpredictable nature of retail business, even in such state of uncertainty, there are trends determining  the customer behavior for the whole year.

Based on acquired data the UFATECH company has drawn a unique report, consisting of 6 trends to influence the retail business in 2016.

#1 Customer Preferences Are Changing Faster than Retail Supply

Even the most flexible companies are usually one step behind the customer needs simply because their desires are emerging exponentially. Many retailers and shopping centers can accumulate large amounts of customer behavior data, but the problem is that by the time this data is estimated and analyzed it becomes outdated.  

The main task of companies at market is to invest into high-grade solutions for customer behavior analysis that will draw reports on a real-time basis. With this in mind one will be able to react to market fluctuations instantly, being prepared for predicted customer behavior.

#2 Lessons Learned Are Going to Determine the Company Success

With ever increasing frequency repletion of buyer wants means more than delivery of quality goods or services. At present clients can choose among a great variety of places and ways to make a purchase, and many of them make decisions spontaneously. That’s why retailers have to understand that one-time purchase does not guarantee customer returning to the same store, so one have to be able to fill up the time between store visits. With this end in view one can use social networks, fostering relationship with customers. So as to utilize this information channel, one should gain an insight into buyer interests, preferences, hobbies and factors, influencing the choice of this or that product. Consequently the whole matter boils down to studying the customer behavior in stores.

#3 All Business Elements Are to Be Customer Oriented

In 2016 an ability to be consistent with customer expectations is going to imply not only understanding their needs - the client should also become the focus of all company segments.

The current trends, as against to the previous periods, will claim not only company development strategy adjustment, but also the development of a brand new top-to-bottom structure, its elements being united by one task – defining and studying retail business as a complex of customers, their needs, and factors, influencing their behavior. For the purpose of effective management of the new structure one should get rid of barriers, preventing the information distribution inside the company. In such a way you will be able to get the necessary message to customer oriented teams, so that they can get a better understanding of the problem and make timely decisions.

# 4 Shopping Is Turning into Entertaiment

Throughout a long period of time we have been watching one tendency of a great interest – the customers more than ever prefer the shopping centers with well-developed entertainment infrastructure. Development of E-commerce has created a universal trading platform, offering the widest variety of goods, all in one place. The physical retail stores don’t have such an advantage, and they have to find something to present in exchange. The idea of attracting the customers to shopping centers has taken the form of the new entertainment facilities, such as cinemas, bowling alleys, amusement machines and food courts, of course. Far and away the customer traffic in shopping and entertainment centers will keep growing in 2016. Some analysts claim that the established commerce forms will soon shift their boundaries, and we will see the entertainment objects integrated into stores. For example, you will be able to buy farm grown vegetables in a restaurant. While we are getting ready to such changes, one can’t but mention that such new forms of commerce will definitely increase the importance of some business metrics, especially the engagement time and follow-up calls data, as far as the assessment of shopping and entertainment center efficiency is concerned.

# 5  Internet of Things Will Fill the Gaps in Customer Behavior Research

Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most hotly debated topics in the field of technologies today. Despite different treatments of integration and interaction of technologies issue, the year 2015 was very significant for this idea to start ruling the minds of people and for the first carried out projects to appear. Scientists predict the 30% growth of interacting things in 2016, but the reality is that it might turn out to be many times greater.

As IoT is expanding, retailers, thinking one step ahead the others, will use the new technologies for business development and creation of first-rate service. For instance, if there is a line to a fitting room, the camera will give a signal to control unit, and the extra fitting rooms will be opened. Another reason to use IoT in retail business will be the need to utilize analytics in the real-time mode, so as to affect the customer behavior and motivate them to make purchases.

# 6 Mobile Technologies Will Tell Much More about Customers

In the days of social networks and communication means development we are all trying to be online constantly, and the greatest part of information sharing is connected with mobile devices. Nevertheless most Russian retail market companies use mobile technologies for communication with customers only, but not as data providers. At the same time the informational trace, left by store visitor’s smart phone or tablet, should never be underestimated. The modern technologies allow tracking the customer paths, using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. Retail companies, that can find an instrument to process this data, will be able to find out what the client paths and visiting hours for every store are. This way they will get a more detailed portrait of client and create a better service. As all the mobile devices have unique MACs, shopping centers and stores will be able to make the difference between regular and first-time customers.

Today the visitor counting technologies can consolidate large amounts of detailed information, providing reports on the basic business metrics, such as conversion rate, success of marketing campaigns and personnel efficiency. In and of itself such data is not deemed to be static – it is hourly and daily changing. In the same way, as to benefit from customer counting systems, one will have to place efforts into studying of the statistics collected.

In order to optimize the customer counters data one should follow the following rules:

Study the tendencies at different periods of time

Make data analysis and draw conclusions

Be fully engaged into solving of acute problems

Assess the results of the changes made

The tendencies to be studied depend on the specifics of your business, object size and location and key tasks. Let us see, what the basic business analytics metrics that can be obtained using the visitor counting systems, are:

• Customer dwell time analysis. Using the customer counter data one can easily find out what the “hot” and “cold” periods – foot traffic peak and off-peak hours - for a store are. The company’s management can employ this data, when making personnel schedules or deciding, what the opening hours will be. When the employees work in a proper way, no visitor will be under-serviced, so the conversion rate and customer loyalty will be increased. The customer counters can reveal the true-to-life information on store traffic, while most of the sellers tend to conceal the real data from their management.

The visitor counting systems provide even more in-depth data that can be used for your business efficiency analysis. Company heads can take advantage of customer counters in order to track the audience reaction to different external factors, such as a new store opened nearby or marketing activity of the competitors. In some cases it won’t be inappropriate to analyze the incoming and passing by traffic to estimate the shopper attraction factors.

• Study the visual marketing efficiency
• See the advance after you have changed the way the goods are displayed or the show-windows have been dressed in a new manner.
• Confirm the success of promotions and merchandising activities
• Analyze the data, taking a few sample stores

Retailers can use the gained information for finding out what the soft spots and ways to solve problems are, as well as for company development and building the more stable relationships with customers. One should learn how to minimize the current marketing costs, allocate personnel efficiently and with peak hours in mind, and to assess the attractiveness of window dressings and goods layouts outside and inside of the store.

Through detailed assessment of the efficiency of introduced changes and thorough investigations, aimed at discovering the positive dynamics, the companies will be able to offer new business challenges, push up sales and enhance the efficiency of operating business. A certain level achieved, the whole process repeats itself again. Genuinely high results are achieved by the companies that strive for hitting their targets, understanding the ingredients for success and using the right instruments to attain it.

Today the visitor counting technologies allow to combine large amount of detailed data, providing reports on key business indicators, such as conversion rate, success of marketing campaigns and personnel efficiency. Such data is not static in and of itself, it changes hourly and daily. It is equally true that in order to enjoy the advantages of customer counting systems one has to work really hard on the analysis of the collected statistics.

We encourage sticking to the following order to optimize data, obtained from visitor counters:

1. Study tendencies at different periods
2. Analyze data and make conclusions
3. Work actively to solve the acute problems
4. Estimate the results of the introduced changes

The tendencies to be studied depend of particular characteristics of your business, object size and location, and key tasks. We would like to share the basic business analytics metrics that can be obtained, using the customer counting systems.

• Customer dwell time analysis. Using the customer counter data one can easily find out what the “hot” and “cold” periods – foot traffic peak and off-peak hours - for a store are. The company’s management can employ this data, when making personnel schedules or deciding, what the opening hours will be. When the employees work in a proper way, no visitor will be under-serviced, so the conversion rate and customer loyalty will be increased. The customer counters can reveal the true-to-life information on store traffic, while most of the sellers tend to conceal the real data from their management.

The visitor counting systems provide even more in-depth data that can be used for your business efficiency analysis. Company heads can take advantage of customer counters in order to track the audience reaction to different external factors, such as a new store opened nearby or marketing activity of the competitors. In some cases it won’t be inappropriate to analyze the incoming and passing by traffic to estimate the shopper attraction factors.

• Study the visual marketing efficiency
• See the advance after you have changed the way the goods are displayed or the show-windows have been dressed in a new manner.
• Confirm the success of promotions and merchandising activities
• Analyze the data, taking a few sample stores

Retailers can use the gained information for finding out what the soft spots and ways to solve problems are, as well as for company development and building the more stable relationships with customers. One should learn how to minimize the current marketing costs, allocate personnel efficiently and with peak hours in mind, and to assess the attractiveness of window dressings and goods layouts outside and inside of the store.

Through detailed assessment of the efficiency of introduced changes and thorough investigations, aimed at discovering the positive dynamics, the companies will be able to offer new business challenges, push up sales and enhance the efficiency of operating business. A certain level achieved, the whole process repeats itself again. Genuinely high results are achieved by the companies that strive for hitting their targets, understanding the ingredients for success and using the right instruments to attain it.

As of today, the retail market companies judge the data processing visitor counters to be the true electronic assistants. High-quality customer counting systems help obtain more detailed information on buyers and their preferences, find out what the people behavior factors are and estimate the company efficiency in general. Store traffic data should work for the benefit of the company, showing the current state of things and constantly providing the analysts with the most acute metrics for business promotion.

There are several types of companies at the modern customer counting systems market. They differ in the way the data is stored and processed. The companies of the first type offer to upload customer traffic data to servers, controlled by the integrator itself. Such an approach allows to charge the customer service fees, the annual payments cumulatively often to exceed the counter installation price. These integrator companies explain it by the fact that server data is monitored and controlled on a day-to-day basis, the actual data compliance check to be held continuously. The reality is that such measures make no sense at all. Here you are welcome to make conclusions yourself: if the erroneous data enters the server or the percentage error, which can be the difference between incoming and outgoing customers, for example, is high, then there must be some problem with the equipment. The customer counters, especially the ones with the video analytics built in, in the first place depend on the way they are installed and adjusted. If the data has errors or differs considerably, the installation place is to be changed. It should not go unspoken, that the integrator companies are not eagerly anxious to come to client’s venues daily to adjust a counter, otherwise, their business won’t produce as much profit. For them it’s much easier to fit some average values into wherever the difference is discovered. This way they can eat the cake and still have it:  the client will consider the equipment to provide more precise data and the integrator company will save the resources it has. If you don’t see the counter data itself and don’t know whether it’s real or not, you can’t trust the statistics collected.

Another essential disadvantage of storing data at an outside server is not being able to access the data, when you really need it. For instance, you are going to run a customer traffic attraction marketing campaign to draw the mall visitors into your store, using the promotion leaflets. Thereto you invite a specialist, who starts working from early morning. It goes without saying, that as to assess the effectiveness of the campaign you will need the acute detailed statistics data of how many visitors have been attracted during the first twenty minutes, hour, three hours, five hours etc. As a result, you will be able both to control the work of the person, giving the leaflets out, and to estimate the attraction price in terms of the day. However those who entrust data storing and processing to a third party won’t be able to get this statistics all through the day. At best, they will send you a detailed analysis at the end of the day or the morning after it, and you will have to guess, what was happening at the time interval, you are interested in - whether the ad-man has just thrown the leaflets out, or the mall traffic at this time is not to be your targeted audience.

Today many companies say that another disadvantage of third party servers is their inability to provide the adequate security. And it’s pretty clear – you can’t guarantee the security of the objects you are not able to control. Of course, the customer traffic counting integrators have adapted to the situation and localized NDA – nondisclosure agreement – to demonstrate they are fair business oriented. Still, it doesn’t change the very core of the subject – your traffic data is in some other’s hands. Who is the one to guarantee it won’t be used by peers some day?

Unlike the integrators, making money from subscriber fees and servicing customer counting systems of the other companies, the Ufatech company offers box solutions that allow to avoid using third party services after the customer counting system is launched. The Ufatech visitor counters upload all the traffic data onto the customer company servers only. Such approach makes it possible to provide 24 hour access to data and obtain the real time data on your stores. Herewith, the system is monitored automatically, using the inbuilt algorithm, analyzing the state of each sensor in the network. Consequently, you will be able to see which sensor needs to be controlled.

Here are the main advantages of the closed system, i.e. system where the data is stored at counter customer servers:

∗ Third party independence;

∗ Ability to use real time data;

∗ No subscriber fees;

∗ Security and data loss prevention;

∗ Ability to get real data from counters;

∗ Ability to access data from any system connected device;

∗ Quick decision making.

A genuinely high-grade and functional solution for customer counting should make it possible to control the data whenever you need it. This is what every MegaCount employee and every modern company, choosing an efficient instrument for customer traffic analysis, considers it to be like.

The Ufatech software processing system allows to take into account the average influence of personnel on general traffic in the network, where the people counters are used. The personnel can greatly affect the reliability of the traffic counting, and it is observed in small boutiques with average traffic of 150-300 people a day. In such stores the personnel can 50-60 times enter the counting area, and such, so called, interferences won’t be connected with potential customers. The personnel won’t bend down, trying not to get into the counting area, and it’s very hard to control, who enters this area and who doesn’t. So, we have included the special counting algorithms into the Statistics software processing system for it to provide the most undistorted data, concerning the customer traffic counting.

It can be demonstrated in the following way. For instance, we have three objects, where the counters are mounted.

Object 1: 2 employees – shows 455 visits a certain day without correction.

Object 2: 3 employees – shows 685 visits a certain day without correction

Object 3: 4 employees: shows 895 visits a certain day without correction.

In all we get 2035 visitors across the whole network, taking the personnel interference into account.
After we had asked all the employees, we got to know, that:

Object 1:

- Employee 1 entered the facility about 14 times a day

- Employee 2 entered the facility about 34 times a day

In general, the average daily correction for Object 1 is 48 visits.

Object 2  
–  Employee 1 enters the facility 15 times a day
–  Employee 2 enters the facility 21 times a day
–  Employee 3 enters the facility 45 times a day
In general, the average daily correction for Object 2 is 81 visits.

Object 3
–  Employee 1 enters the facility 24 times a day
–  Employee 2 enters the facility 26 times a day
–  Employee 3 enters the facility 34 times a day
–  Employee 4 enters the facility 41 times a day
In general, the average daily correction for Object 3 is 125 visits.

When entering the average employee interference data at objects, we get the most approximate actual traffic data for all objects. So, the system provides the data on all the days, taking the average personnel interference into account.

Object 1 – 2 employees: 407 visits a day with amount of visitors to be deducted
Object 2 – 3 employees: 604 visits a day with amount of visitors to be deducted
Object 2 – 4 employees: 770 visits a day with amount of visitors to be deducted

Total for the whole network: 1781 visitors without personnel interference
The personnel correction is intelligently and by default applied to all the counting days, months and years.

The corrections of the MegaCount analytics system can be universally changed according to the number of employees, starting from any day, - they can either be added or deleted. At the same time the previous periods data is stored and taken into account, when counting is made.

About a billion people come to shopping malls all over the world daily – from Tokian Solamachi  to Diamond Centre in Alaska. This new form of commerce is gaining momentum, and despite the general recession of the economy it is growing extremely rapidly, offering a great amount of new sales areas.

The development of retail business and emerging technologies make the shopping malls adjust to the quick changes and adapt to new environment. In general, large shopping malls are the top performers now, both as far as the general sales level (which is quite expected) and the square meter sales level are concerned.

Another key point to be mentioned by everyone, who spends more than 2 hours a week in a mall, is comfort, and it is crucial. Indeed, the statistics shows, that most of the respondents say, that comfort, or atmosphere, as it is also called, is critical, when choosing what mall to go to. However, if we take a look at retail business, which has greatly changed over the past years, we can see, that the former elements of comfort, taken into account by shopping mall analysts, recede into past, and are replaced by new ones. Now the customers, who used to choose small local shopping centers with a few anchor tenants and traditional food courts, tend to go to trade centers that dared to implement large innovations.

Implementation of Analytical Visitors Counting System to Create the Necessary Atmosphere in a Shopping Mall

Most of the retail sales are made in stores, for this reason the investments in shopping malls can generate substantial profit. However, ordinary redecoration as a way to invest is not enough in this case. The growth and development of shopping centers make both the mall employees and tenants focus on the following aspects: the way the customer flow is distributed within the building, areas, sparking particular interest in certain audience, best places for the layouts to be located. Such information can help solve different problems, starting from the choice of tenants and ending with marketing campaigns that will help attract visitors and fit retail stores at best. Computer-assisted customer counters give answers to all possible questions.

The customer counting system can also help study and improve the atmosphere of the trade center. Exactly just like nice music and attractive design draw consumer traffic, shopping lines, crowds and inability to approach a product you like can negatively affect the impression left from the store. A shopping mall has always been more than just a place to shop, but it doesn’t mean, that people will be glad to see long lines or crowds, that don’t let come closer to a layout, one got interested in. The consumer counters are a necessary instrument to avoid all these troubles and make the shopping experience as nice as possible. It is easier to solve a problem, if you know when you face it.

The popularity of the shopping centers is a phenomenon one should have got used to long ago. This tendency will remain unchanged and grow as the years go by. The shopping malls attract a great number of people, and offer a variety of entertainment opportunities for the customers to feel happy. One doesn’t have to make superhuman efforts for a shopping mall to boom – just choose the right instrument. 

Whatever purchase one wants to make today, he/she will always have to choose between a common store and an Internet one. The modern retail tendencies show, that this choice will only be harder and harder to make, as E-commerce is developing continuously. This is why the retail business owners have to plan their company development strategies thoroughly, starting from the place for a new outlet to be opened, and ending with the marketing campaign arrangement and making a personnel work schedule.

There was a time, when in order to get feedback to estimate, how efficient a promotional campaign had been or find out, how popular a store was among customers, one just had to interview the customers, asking “How did you know about us” questions. Many customer habits have changed since then – new communications means have appeared. They enhanced the efficiency of “word of mouth” marketing, besides, the exhibitions and show-rooms have become popular, all this making the feedback from clients hard to get. Nevertheless, understanding the psychology of customer behavior and factors, influencing the customer choice, can make the use of company’s available resources more efficient.

Those people, who still impeach the need in such an instrument as a visitor counter, can have a look at a small list of most frequently asked questions, answered by the Ufatech company in detail. We hope, that this information will help you make the appropriate decision and acquire the intelligent customer counting system, making the work of your company more efficient.

Q: What to measure the customer traffic for?

A: Customer counting is used in many fields of business. Retailers can compare the sales level with the acute customer flow to find out, how successful the work of their company is and what the percentage ratio of customers and visitors is. Libraries, museums and different non-profit-making organizations use the received data to provide effective management and to make traffic reports to get subsidies and investments.

Q: Does the customer counting system count employees and does this data effect the eventual result?

A: The MegaCount Statistics analytical software package makes the personnel correction possible. The correction is automatically calculated after the number of employees is set and the number of employees to walk in and out is specified. At the same time, the video counter allows to add the exclusion line, installed away from the customer flow and obligingly crossed by the trained personnel, when walking in and out of the store.

Q: Should the obtained result be divided by two to count the incomers separately?

A: All the Ufatech customer counters provide two-direction counting. It gives an insight into peak hours for customer traffic and allows to avoid unnecessary work when processing statistics data.

The MegaCount company encourages to hold back from acquiring cheap customer counters, providing one-direction counting and displaying data on device screen. Such “calculator-counters” can neither guarantee the full value analysis of customer traffic nor can they give accurate results at all.

Q: Dishonest employees can cheat the sensors, how can one prevent it?

A: Most frequently one faces the situation, when the sellers, whose wage depends on store’s conversion level, cover the sensors with tape for some time in order to cheat the management staff and provide inadequate information on customer traffic. The Ufatech visitor counters are equipped with in-built protection from external actions, adjusted for the system to constantly scan the state of all sensors. If one of the sensors is working inappropriately, the system will immediately send a request to carry out an inspection.

Q: Do the counters have a set margin of error? How accurate is the customer counting system?

A: The Ufatech company can’t estimate all the visitor counting systems and comment on error margins (accuracy), specified by sellers. It should be realized, that certain environment should be created for trouble-free work of the counters – the entrance group should meet the certain requirements. For instance, when the horizontal counters are mounted at a wide entrance area (more than 3 meters wide), the counting line may be easily crossed by two visitors and more. Obviously, a horizontal customer counter is designed so as to count only one crossing. For the video counters to work in the right way, the installation requirements are to be followed. This way one will get accurate data even when the traffic is very high. At the same time, one should understand, that the video counter itself is a device, using high-end technology, and having certain settings, influencing the counting accuracy, thus the Ufatech company provides free calibration service to its customers.

In retail business the interest to customer behavior psychology investigations is growing day by day, and attention is being increasingly focused on customer flow analysis. Most retailers consider the store customer traffic to be the second most important criterion after the cash desk data, showing the company efficiency and allowing to obtain such metrics as conversion rate and average basket size. In retail business, conversion is deemed to be the proportion of sales number to general customer traffic, usually measured in percents. Today, the tendency to implement customer flow analysis can be seen in many other fields too: exhibitions, sporting venues, museums, libraries, state institutions. Special emphasis should be placed on customer counting in transport business services – modern airports and railroad stations strike for implementation of the state-of-the-art developments in passenger transportation analysis to provide a better service.

CUSTOMER COUNTING METHODS

So as to analyze the customer traffic and estimate the conversion rate the visitor counting systems are used. Currently, the market offers a great variety of devices - from horizontal infrared sensors to video counters with computer-aided analytics. Every counter type has its own advantages and designed to be used under certain conditions. The prices vary from several hundred to one thousand dollars. The devices differ in quality as well, their working capacity depending on the components used by the manufacturer. Generally, the high quality equipment is an off-the-shelf solution, including everything one needs to launch it and obtain statistics. There are a large number of manufacturers, specializing in development of one or two types of counters, but there are very few companies, providing complex solutions for customer flow analysis. In Europe this niche is confidently taken by the Ufatech company, offering a wide range of self-engineered developments for retail business.

VIDEO SYSTEM FOR CUSTOMER COUNTING

A video counter with in-built video analytics represents the most up-to-date generation of customer counters. This type of devices, that has obtained a wide circulation over the last few years, is based on complex analytical and mathematically based algorithms, built into the counter. Most retailers choose the video counters for customer traffic tracking in particular, because they count the visitors accurately under any conditions. There are video counters with one or two lenses. Until quite recently the stereo systems with two lenses had been ahead of the one lens counters, as the latter were sensitive to shadows, flecks of sunlight and other interferences. However the technological development allowed to create a completely new counting algorithm for image capture sensors with one lens. The Ufatech VideoCount visitor counter incorporates the 3D ASSIS counting algorithm, created by the team of Russian engineers, besides, it is equipped with modern processor. It is an excellent example of high quality equipment for visitor counting and video analysis, setting a standard not only in European countries, but all over the globe as well. The VideoCount 3D ASSIS has the same functionality as the more expensive 3D customer counters do – it can distinguish the object by size, make tracking maps and thermal maps. Such technology is used throughout the entire world, and the Ufatech video counters can be found in malls, chain stores, airports, stadiums and libraries outside the country.

ANALYTICS SOFTWARE

Except for the customer counters of different types, there are many other ways to work with the data received. Some solutions allow to upload data locally only, the others need special devices for data transmission, whilst there are also counters compatible with one specific software, involving extra charges sometimes. For users it’s much more convenient to purchase systems, supplied with software in kit and allowing to integrate data from visitor counters into existing data bases. The Ufatech company has created a wide range of solutions for analysts, offering different instruments for data processing: Statistica analytical software package, Web-module to be accessed from any device, Software for data integration into existing data base.

VISITOR COUNTING ACCURACY

One of the key features of the customer counting systems is their counting accuracy, that can be measured in several ways. The easiest one is to find out what the difference between the number of people, who have come and left, is. Theoretically, this number should be approaching zero, confirming that the same number of people have entered and left the store. Another way to measure the counting accuracy is to count the visitors manually and compare the received data with the data from visitor counters. In this case we can take neither value for reference, as the person, making the counting, can’t be 100 % accurate, be the incoming and outgoing traffic too high. Here, the most sensible solution is to count a hundred incoming visitors manually and compare the received value with counters data. The same thing is to be done with outgoing customers. Under ordinary conditions, the high quality customer counting systems are 95% accurate and higher.

Technology Contest: 3D ASSIS vs 3D

Until recently the most effective way to solve the customer counting problem had been the 3D counters, using the algorithm, that merged pictures, obtained from two cameras. At that time this algorithm was a genuine breakthrough in the field of customer traffic analysis, as compared to horizontal infrared counters. The algorithm allowed to cover the large counting area, and, at the same time, to mount the sensors on the ceilings, run the customer path analyses and adjust the filters to track the certain objects. Despite this, the system had its own drawbacks, such as strictly vertical mounting and complicated onsite adjustment. Besides, it couldn’t be used in poorly illuminated rooms and when the customer clothes color was the same as the floor color (for example, dark colored carpets at the entrance and clothes of gray colors).

The technologies are constantly developing, and the outdated ones are replaced by new technological achievements. In 2014 the 3D ASSIS counting algorithm was developed by Ufatech – one of the largest producers of customer counting systems. The algorithm allows to process the two-dimensional video-stream and convert it into the 3D computational model of data presentation, representing a fundamentally new type of devices, that managed to keep all the capabilities of the 3Ds of previous generation, and got rid of the unnecessary camera, twice cutting the production costs and avoiding the faults of the 3D counters.

The 3D ASSIS Ufatech counting technology made the creation of the reasonably priced people counter possible, allowing to detect at different heights and in poorly illuminated rooms, covering up to 6 meters or up to 60 meters, depending on the mode of intelligent combination of sensors into one counting line. At the same time, the new algorithm doesn’t have the main disadvantage of 3D technologies – complicated on-site adjustment.  Using the new technology, any user can adjust the counting system onsite and do supporting and maintenance works.