Traffic-Counting Tool Helps Boost Conversion Rate

May 2012 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Erin Harris, associate editor

A business intelligence tool helped Vanity, Inc. experience double-digit growth in key performance indicators (KPIs).

Without visibility into store operations and key quantitative data, such as store traffic, store conversion, sales per hour, and service intensity, it can be very difficult for store managers to fully understand what is happening (or not happening) in the store. Theresa Clark, director of stores at Vanity, Inc., a North Dakota-based fast fashion retailer, identified an opportunity to uncover and measure data outside the normal KPIs. Indeed, Clark needed a way to determine to whom Vanity was not selling and why.

In order to measure conversion rates, Vanity managers relied on average dollar sales (ADS) and units per transaction (UPT). “When we measured success in the store, and what a successful store looked like, we only captured whom we sold to,” explains Clark. “Those metrics didn’t tell us about the opportunities that walked out the door. When it’s about transactions, transactions, and more transactions, we found that we had large average dollar sales, but we were converting less in transactions. We were spending so much time with one customer that we were not servicing the other customers in the same way. We needed a new way to drive our business, to drive our metrics, and to ensure that everybody had a great experience in our store.”