If you want to find out where your visitors come from and how long they take to travel to your retail site or high street, fortunately modern digital technology has the answers. Visitor journeys and travel times are recognised as key factors influencing decisions about where retailers should locate their stores, alongside which demographic groups and postcode areas to target in order to increase foot traffic and sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does travel time matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The time it takes for customers to reach a destination can drastically affect the number of people who visit a retail park, leisure site and high street. According to one study, consumers typically refuse to travel more than 20 minutes<\/a> to make everyday purchases, whereas other research shows that around 65% of shoppers visit local shopping centres for convenience<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, as prices for fuel and energy rise, people are becoming less willing to make longer journeys with figures from the British Retail Consortium-Sensormatic IQ showing a sharper decline in November for UK retail footfall<\/a>. Unfortunately, this has affected many retailers and businesses nationwide who struggle to offer low prices for customers, while production costs, such as wages, raw materials, energy, and transportation increase. To add insult-to-injury, over 40,000 train workers from RMT union have announced rail strikes<\/a> spanning December through January, which could bring further challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, conversely some retail sites and high streets do find people visiting them from all over the UK. If, for example, your location is near a major motorway or popular tourist route, you could leverage the knowledge of how far people travel to visit your shopping destination. With visitor behaviour data, this allows businesses to effectively target potential customers in those seemingly distant locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n