Capture rate: what it is and how to measure it
Capture rate is the proportion of passers-by who walk in: visitors entering ÷ passers-by. It covers the stage before the entrance and tells a weak location from a weak concept, because the street sets how many people walk past while the frontage and the offer decide how many step inside.
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A sales report shows who bought, but it says nothing about the people who walked past and never came in. Capture rate covers them. It sets the street outside against the visitors inside, so a store can see how much of the passing audience it draws.
How is capture rate calculated?
Capture rate = visitors entering ÷ passers-by. Of everyone who walked past, it shows how many the frontage pulled in. The result is a share of the passing audience, and it is read over a chosen period, such as the days before and after a window change.
How is capture rate measured?
Wi-Fi counting registers the passers-by outside a store and the visitors inside it, often on the access points the store already runs. Where the entry count has to be exact, a 3D sensor at the door adds directional in and out counts. Its video is processed for analytics only, and no personal images are stored.
Bumbee Labs is the company behind the only footfall method in Europe approved by a data protection authority.
What does a low capture rate tell you?
A weak capture rate points to what happens before the door: the window, the façade or the location. When capture is strong and conversion is weak, the problem sits inside the store. Reading the two steps together stops a store from fixing the wrong one.
How do capture rate and conversion rate fit together?
They are consecutive steps of one funnel. Capture rate, which some call street-to-store or window conversion, is the step before the door: the share of passers-by who enter. Conversion rate is the step after it: the share of visitors who buy. A store that measures both can see which step is losing people.
What is a good capture rate?
It depends on the street and the concept, so the useful comparison is with your own windows, periods and stores. A chain can line its stores up like for like, as a footfall benchmark does. In a petrol station network the rate varied widely between sites, and the best forecourts became the model for the rest.
Where is capture rate used?
It is used wherever a street or an approach feeds a door: shop windows and façades, pop-ups, retail chains, rent and location decisions, petrol forecourts and peak-season campaigns. In each case it shows how much of the passing audience came in, compared before and after a change or between sites.
- A new display, a refreshed frontage or a campaign week is judged by the rate before and after it, as described for shops in retail footfall analytics.
- Over a short run, a pop-up shows whether the spot or the concept performed, and how it compares with an earlier run.
- Chains report the same funnel in every store, so a weak store is diagnosed on capture or on conversion.
- Property companies use passers-by and capture rate per building in rent negotiations and location decisions.
- In petrol stations the same ratio runs from pump to store: of those who stop, how many come in. The forecourt funnel shows where it leaks.
- In November the street outside carries more passing traffic than at any other time of year, so in those weeks a small gain in how well a window pulls people in applies to the largest audience.
The rest of the vocabulary is in the retail metrics glossary.
Curious what this looks like for your venue?
Frequently asked questions
Can capture rate show whether a new window display works?
Yes. Measure capture rate for a period before the change and a period after it, then compare the two readings of the same frontage. Sales alone cannot show whether more of the street came in.
Does measuring capture rate involve personal data?
Wi-Fi counting involves no images and identifies no individual: passers-by and visitors are counted as anonymous, aggregated flows. You receive statistics such as visitor counts, flows and capture rates.
Can capture rate support a rent negotiation?
Yes. It shows how a unit performed against the street it was given, so what the location delivers and what the tenant's concept delivers can be discussed separately. Passers-by and capture rate per building give a negotiation firmer footing than comparable deals alone.