Retail capture rate is footfall ÷ passers-by, expressed as a percentage. If 1,000 people walk past a store in a day and 250 come in, the capture rate is 25%. It measures how well a storefront turns available demand into visits, and it isolates the part of performance the retailer controls at the door: the window, the signage, the entrance, the lighting, the first impression.
How capture rate explains footfall
The value of capture rate is that it explains footfall. A store whose footfall drops 15% in a week has either lost passers-by, lost capture rate, or both, and the response is different in each case. Fewer passers-by points to the location: a closed anchor store, roadworks, a change to the car park, a rival centre. A lower capture rate points to the frontage: a tired window, a blocked entrance, a promotion that ended. Without passer-by counts the two are indistinguishable, and a store manager can be blamed for a problem the landlord owns, or the other way round.
Note that capture rate stops at the door; what happens between the door and the till is conversion rate.
What is a good capture rate?
Typical capture rates vary widely by format and location. A destination store on a retail park captures a high share of the people who arrive, because most of them came for it; a fashion store on a busy high street or mall concourse captures a far smaller share of a much larger flow. The useful comparisons are therefore within a store over time, between similar stores in an estate, and before and after a change to the frontage.
Using capture rate to test windows and displays
Capture rate also makes window and display trials measurable. Two window layouts can be compared over matched periods, or between comparable stores. The result of this test is a measured percentage rather than an opinion.
How Glimpse measures capture rate
Glimpse reports capture rate by location, starting with a single value that covers all entrances. You can then drill-down to see footfall and passer-by counts for each individual door.
Footfall is measured from the door camera and passers-by from either a camera with a view of the street or a Glimpse Sensor mounted above the entrance.
