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PathTracker - Revisited

August 15, 2005 - by Robert E. Stevens, GENESIS II(The Second Beginning) E-Mail: views@aol.com

Peter Fader, Eric Bradlow, and Jeffrey Larson of the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania have written a paper titled “An Exploratory Look at Supermarket Shopping Paths.” The paper focuses on travel patterns without regard to purchase behavior or merchandising tactics. The results, they conclude, challenge many long-standing perceptions of shopper travel behavior within a supermarket.

The authors identified 14 distinct grocery store travel paths during short, medium, and long shopping trips. Based on this information they conclude that:

  • The perimeter of the store called the “racetrack” is actually the shopper’s home base and not just the space covered between aisles. “Whereas previous folklore perpetuated the myth that the perimeter of the store was visited incidental to successive aisle traverses, we now know that it often serves as the main thoroughfare, effectively a home base from which shoppers take quick trips into the aisles.”
  • Grocery shoppers don’t weave up and down all aisles, a pattern commonly thought to dominate store travel.
  • Once they enter the aisle, shoppers rarely make it to the other end.
  • Shoppers prefer a counter-clockwise shopping experience.
  • Shoppers tend to shop more quickly as they approach the checkout counters.
  • According to Fader, there is a tremendous amount of research available on why people buy what they buy, but until now there was really no research on tracking the actual buying decision. Until researchers are able to obtain positioning data directly from the shoppers themselves, PathTracker offers the next best thing.

    As Barlow states, “What the scanner technology doesn’t collect is in-store behavior. Where did you go to buy that product? What path did you take? Where did you spend time? In what order did you look at product categories?” These are crucial issues in terms of layout, product placement, and store profits. We will eventually start linking in-store movement to purchase decisions.

    The Wharton researchers note in their paper that “Other researchers have addressed the general topic of in-store patterns in the past. But no one has PathTracker data.”

    So far Dr. Herb Sorensen of Sorensen Associates has installed PathTracker systems in 20 retail stores and is in the process of outfitting 10 more.




Sponsor: Sorensen Associates Inc
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the in-store research company™   --  Dedicated to the relentless pursuit of WHY?


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