Trade at seven in the morning, families on Saturday. Two customer flows, one rota, and a yard the door counter never sees.
A builders' merchant serves two customers with two rhythms on a site that is half indoors and half outdoors. Footfall analytics shows both flows, hour by hour, across the store, the yard and the collection point, so staffing, opening hours and layout follow the customers you actually have.
For the builders' merchant, the DIY warehouse and the paint shop. Anonymous, approved by a data protection authority.
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Three questions every DIY and hardware retailer asks
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When is it trade, and when is it consumers?
Two hourly curves in one store, the early trade rush and the weekend consumer wave, so opening hours and staffing are set per customer type, not on an average of both.
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What happens in the yard and the drive-in?
Outdoor flow on the yard and drive-in is measured separately from the store, so the site is judged as a whole and the collection point gets staffed when queues actually build.
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Which aisles does nobody walk down?
Dwell by department across a large floor, plumbing, electrical, garden, paint, shows the dead corners and the aisles that carry the visit, so the layout is re-planned on evidence.
Two customers, two rhythms, one site
A builders’ merchant or DIY warehouse is really two stores in one building. The trade customer arrives early, knows what they want and needs the collection desk and the cutting service to be quick. The consumer arrives on Saturday, browses, and needs someone on the floor in garden or paint. A single door counter averages the two into a curve that fits neither. Footfall analytics for DIY and hardware stores separates them by hour, measures the yard and the drive-in as well as the store, and shows where on a large floor the visit stalls.
What you see, site by site
- Two hourly curves: the weekday trade rush and the evening and weekend consumer wave, so staffing and opening hours are set per customer type.
- The yard, the drive-in and the car park: outdoor flow measured alongside the store, so arrivals and the share that comes inside are visible.
- Queues at collection, cutting and customer service: dwell at each service point by hour, so those desks are staffed when queues actually form.
- Dwell by department: plumbing, electrical, timber, paint, garden, so dead corners and carrying aisles are visible on the floor plan.
- The seasonal curve: the spring peak and the autumn fall, week by week, so garden and outdoor staffing follow the customers.
- Campaign effect: visits in the week after a leaflet, compared with the weeks before.
- Site against site: the same measures across a chain, so warehouses are compared like for like.
How zones and paths come together on a floor plan is shown on retail heatmaps; how the hourly curves become a rota is on staff planning with footfall data.
What DIY and hardware retailers have done with it
Things builders’ merchants, DIY chains and paint shops we measure have actually done:
- Set opening hours per customer type after the two curves showed trade arriving before the doors opened and consumers still on site after they closed.
- Staffed the collection desk and the cutting service on measured queue times rather than a fixed rota.
- Re-planned dead corners on a large floor after dwell per department showed where the visit stalled.
- Ran the spring peak on the curve, raising garden and outdoor staffing week by week as the customers arrived.
- Judged a leaflet campaign on visits in the following week, not just on sales.
- Measured the yard separately from the store and staffed the drive-in on its own flow.
- Measured the trade and private mix on site from arriving vehicles, and planned the yard and the store around it.
- A paint shop with a single entrance used a simple entrance count and the hourly curve to set its rota, no more than that.
Getting started on a DIY or hardware site
Most sites start on the Wi-Fi already in the building; the outdoor yard is covered by adding an access point or two, and an entrance sensor gives exact in/out counts where they matter. Staff and delivery drivers are filtered out of the counts. The first month gives the two curves, the yard flow and dwell by department; a chain adds sites on the same setup and compares them like for like, in the dashboard or through the API into your own BI. The method is anonymous by design and is the only footfall method in Europe approved by a data protection authority.
How Wi-Fi people counting works → People counter for stores: see what happens before the till →
Telia's partnership with Bumbee Labs is important for us to expand our business. It allows us to develop our use cases for location and movement insights to be even more granular. By combining our anonymized and aggregated mobile network data with Bumbee Labs solution of GDPR-safe Wi-Fi probe data, we ensure that the collection of data follows the strictest guidelines of GDPR compliance all the way.
Frequently asked questions
Our site is half outdoors. Can you measure the yard?
Yes. Outdoor flow on the yard, the drive-in and the car park is measured alongside the store, so you see arrivals, the share that comes inside, and where on the site queues form.
Can we tell trade customers from consumers?
The hourly curve separates them well in practice, trade early on weekdays, consumers on evenings and weekends, and on some sites the mix has been measured from arriving vehicles as well. Nothing identifies an individual; the output is aggregate flow by hour and by zone.
Does a campaign leaflet show up in the numbers?
Yes. Visits in the week after a leaflet or offer are compared with the weeks before, so you see whether the campaign brought people in, and whether they went to the aisle it promoted.
Do we need cameras across a large site?
No. The core measurement runs on the site's Wi-Fi, anonymously, and it is the only footfall method in Europe approved by a data protection authority. Entrance sensors add exact counts where you want them, and staff are filtered out.
What builders' merchants and DIY chains do with the data
Builders' merchants we measure have set trade and consumer opening hours on two separate hourly curves, staffed the collection desk and the cutting service on measured queue times rather than guesswork, and re-planned dead corners on a large floor after dwell per department showed where the visit stalled. Several run the spring peak on the visitor curve week by week, so garden and outdoor staffing rises with the customers rather than the calendar. One measured the share of trade and private customers on site from the vehicles that arrived, and planned the yard and the store around it.