GfK Steps Up with Footfall Measure

In the US, GfK has introduced a new service called Location Insights, to help retailers understand the movements and demographics of crowds around specific shopping environments.

Location Insights uses anonymous cellphone tower data to reveal where crowds cluster, as well as the movements of crowds before and after they leave specific stores, restaurants, entertainment venues or other places. This information is then combined with socio-demographic profiles from the firm's consumer research and data drawn from the US Census.

The service can be used for a host of retail measures such as observing visitor traffic for competitive retail sites, identifying store locations with the greatest sales potential, tailoring assortment to more closely fit the changing demographics of foot traffic, and determining when and where to place out-of-home advertising.

Tom Dailey, COO of GfK Consumer Choices North America, comments: 'Today's retailers face unprecedented competition to serve customer needs in more dynamic ways. By focusing on traffic patterns, and not people, our solution provides retailers with unprecedented insights based on crowd movement statistics.'

Web site: www.gfk.com .