Hyper U Les Arcs/Sud Dracenie ‘shopping gallery’ in the south of France has much to offer its customers. Within one attractive and conveniently located site, visitors can shop for food and wine, fashion and footwear, and health and beauty. They can also enjoy a host of additional services from restaurants and cafes, to gym facilities.

Already a successful retail destination, the centre’s owners recently completed a business intelligence project that is on track to make it perform even better, and keep building on commercial successes over time. Our case study and video explain how the traffic analytics project came about, and what we helped achieve.

Retailers that are currently coping with the impact of COVID-19 will note how hypermarkets like Hyper U Les Arcs are better positioned to adapt to special measures being implemented, if they have people counting technology and traffic analytics capabilities. Our product can help hypermarkets evaluate the impact of their actions on footfall and make changes accordingly, in these challenging circumstances.

Enabling better decision-making with footfall data

In this article we explore the central benefit of the technological investment - namely how it can help improve decision-making in retail property marketing and management. By making use of traffic data insights that reveal how visitors use the mall, it’s been possible to fine-tune tenant mix, optimise layout and operations and tailor marketing activities and events so that they deliver the very best results.

By gathering rich intelligence about customer behaviour throughout the year, the mall owners are in a strong competitive position and fully able to support tenants looking for sale growth opportunities.

People counting as a basis for retail intelligence

Anchoring this popular retail development is the Hyper U hypermarket which spans 4,500 sq. m. It is a major pull, but visitors can also eat at the on-site McDonalds, have a manicure at the nail bar, and make use of the car wash. With traffic data insights it’s now possible for the mall owners to build a clearer picture of what percentage of visitors focus solely on Hyper U, and how many shop the wider gallery, or do both. Management can also learn about dwell times in different zones of the centre, which are the hot spots, when the peaks occur and – vitally - how trackable shopper behaviours vary during the year.

There are big seasonal changes to consider, as the hypermarket and shopping gallery are used very differently according to the month and season. Naturally marketing campaigns need to be tailored throughout the year to correspond with the different ways shoppers are using the site, depending on seasonal circumstances.

The need for smarter marketing

Jeremy Maley, Head of Marketing & Communications at Hyper U Les Arcs / Sud Dracenie shopping mall says: “We had a clear cut need to gather and analyse accurate footfall across the gallery. The lack of historic and real-time shopper traffic data led to an incomplete understanding of visitor trends throughout the year.”

He says the management team were keen to pinpoint the lucrative power hours and to fully comprehend the impact of seasonal peaks and changes in the weather – which can be extreme in this part of France. “When it came to attracting new customers via marketing campaigns and other commercial activities there was no existing footfall data to utilise as a planning resource or for benchmarking over time,” he explains.

This lack of insight has been addressed. Now at Hyper U Les Arcs, Sensormatic Solutions Shopper Insights 3D video cameras with the sensors at each entry point to the shopping complex, track visitor numbers and shopper flow. The solution delivers value as a conduit to vital decision making. Weekly and monthly reporting direct influences important marketing plans, says Maley.

Future planning is easier with retail systems providing insights

The shopping mall has used retail footfall analytics to recognise the impact of marketing events, commercial operations, customer incentives, and weather conditions on visitor numbers, and to fully understand dwell times and conversion rates. Planning for big peaks such as summer vacation shopping, the pre-Christmas rush and winter sales is now better-informed and easier to execute.

The shopping gallery understands when peak hours and peak trading days will occur and is building up a valuable picture of the evolution of footfall from month to month and seasonally. “Provisions are in place for additional metrics for future benchmarking activities,” says Maley,

Watch the video here.