This story was inspired by actual events:

It was mid-September, 2009. The air was brisk, leaves were changing. University students, a few weeks into a new school year were just starting to visualize their halloween costumes. (Editor’s note: in 2009, the author of this post dressed as Quailman for Halloween. Photo here. Mock him mercilessly at rwoodhouse@flonomics.com)

As nature began shutting down for winter, another man sat down at his kitchen table with a computer and a budding idea: a fresh, new way for brick-and-mortar retailers to improve their business. In the past, he’d had his struggles in other “tech” ventures, but this one was different. This idea was rooted in cold, hard data.

You see, our hero knew that data would never leave you cold, wet, standing outside in a monsoon of your own regrets, clutching a soggy jewelry box along with your last fading shred of dignit—Whoa, sorry about that. Clearly there are still some issues that need to be worked through.

So as he sipped a fresh cup of coffee and tapped out notes on his laptop, this new vision came into view: a people counting system that unlocked insights like conversion rates, marketing efficiency, and staffing needs, all through the power of people tracking.

And thus began one man’s love affair with raw, beautiful, sumptuous data.

….

Let’s move ahead a bit to the point of the story: the reality is at Flonomics, we love data. We love it because in almost any case, pure insightful data will not let you down. And data, we’ve found, will always love you back.

Specifically, we love what we can do with properly analyzed data to help our clients. What we love most about people counter data is our ability to generate actionable results for brick-and-mortar retailers, museums, attractions and casinos, in real time. A few examples:

• Conversion Rates are a snap: using people counter technology at your location, you can compare sales figures to traffic data to see exactly how many potential sales are being converted in a day, week, month—any time frame. And, easily compare conversion rates across multiple retail locations.
• Staffing analysis is a breeze: If you know how many visitors your business receives on certain days and times, you can confidently assign the right amount of staff at all times. In fact, several flonomics clients have used this analysis to tweak business hours entirely, based on heavy traffic times.
• Marketing efficiency, ftw: Just how effective was your last marketing campaign? With people counter technology, the answer will be more precise than an educated guess or a quick look at sales numbers. Comparing traffic data during your last campaign to pre-established traffic benchmarks can offer a broader understanding of the effectiveness of your last campaign.

Sure, people counter data won’t make you a winner in romance, but the insights you’ll seduce, err, deduce, will make you a stud… in business.

….

Fast forward to the end of our story: the guy huddled over a table with a computer and an idea? In 2010 he launched Flonomics, a company which today serves hundreds of businesses across many industries with the same passion as that fateful day in Fall of 2009. To learn more about how Flonomics people counters can serve your business, please get in touch with us.

And for the record, our hero’s relationship with data is doing just fine.