A heatmap is the most intuitive way to visualise store traffic. It paints the floor plan from low to high according to the time shoppers spend in each area, so hot spots, cold areas and bottlenecks stand out immediately.
In Shoppermotion, every trip is a sequence of positions with a timestamp. The heatmap adds up the time all trips spent in each square of the floor plan. Unlike camera-based heatmaps, it covers the whole store, every hour, and it is built from anonymous trolley and basket positions rather than from images of people. Heatmaps can be filtered by day, hour, shopping tool, shopping mission and store. See the heatmaps article.
Three patterns are worth looking for: hot areas that do not convert (attention without sales usually points to price, assortment or shelf layout), cold areas that most shoppers never reach (blind spots), and queues at checkouts, counters or bottlenecks between gondolas. Comparing two periods side by side is the fastest way to see the effect of a layout change or a new display.
The case study for Carrefour covers how store heatmaps are built, preferred destination aisles by hour and how to read hot and cold areas against sales. For large spaces such as shopping malls, Wi-Fi based heatmaps show where visitors spend most of their time, but only along the main aisles.