"Traffic Talk"
06/04/2010 16:47:03 PM
More Thoughts on the iPad Launch
By Bill Martin
Like many others in retail, the ShopperTrak team has been scanning the news for results of the Apple iPad launch this weekend. (Of course, we have a particular interest because ShopperTrak measures the retail traffic for all Apple Stores around the world.)
In my reading, I found one article, “Best Buy Shares Benefit From Apple iPad Launch” worth bringing to your attention because it emphasizes the “hidden” value of store traffic data.
According to the article, Canaccord Adams, a financial services firm, took the initiative to do a survey of 30 Best Buy and Apple stores. They concluded that there were “widespread sellouts at Best Buy stores,” but that the “Apple stores had more inventory and remained in stock.” But they also had this to say about traffic:
Best Buy "obviously had some pretty good store traffic," said Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams technology analyst.
While shopper traffic in Apple stores was driven by the iPad introduction, Best Buy may have also benefited from the usual traffic its stores generate on a Saturday.
"It seemed this past weekend was a good store-traffic weekend," Misek said
We know that Canaccord Adams is certainly not going to reveal proprietary survey numbers to the press. However, I thought Peter Misek’s comments showed that financial experts understand the value of traffic data, but they have a number of “hidden” questions that a single survey can never answer.
“Pretty good store traffic”
Would that be 5,000 shoppers? 20,000 shoppers? How did traffic vary by store location? (Best Buy has over 1,000 stores.) When were the peak traffic periods during the day?
“Best Buy may have also benefited from the usual traffic it stores generate on a Saturday.”
What is the usual (average) Saturday traffic for Best Buy? How was Best Buy traffic trending against the retail traffic index for the wireless/electronic segment before iPad Launch Saturday? What percentage increase over the average did Best Buy realize? How did Best Buy do in converting this incremental traffic into sales? (It does little good to generate traffic if retailers don’t have the appropriate labor to convert traffic to sales.)
“It seemed this past weekend was a good store-traffic weekend.”
Sure wish I knew for sure!
