Traffic means the number of customers who entered a store. It's also referred to as visitor count, or simply Traffic.
Traffic is the number of people who enter a store out of everyone who passes by it — so converting more passersby into visitors is a key initiative. The indicator for how well you do that is Capture Rate.
Passersby — the number of customers who pass by the store
Capture Rate — the percentage of passersby who go on to enter the store
A wide range of measurement tools exist — from manual counters to the latest traffic-counting sensors and AI-powered cameras. Traffic measurement also feeds several other important store KPIs, including Conversion, customer-to-staff ratio, and visitor counts by floor.
Check out our 5-minute data course on Traffic:
↓ Click the video below to start ↓
Formula: Traffic = Passersby × Capture Rate
When you think about what Traffic affects, Sales is probably the first thing that comes to mind. Start by looking at what Sales is made of:
Sales = Average Purchase × Transactions
Transactions itself breaks down further: Transactions = Traffic × Conversion.
To hit a big target like Sales, you need concrete, specific initiatives — which is why breaking a metric down into its components like this, then targeting each one, matters. Traffic is closely tied to Transactions (a component of Sales) together with Conversion — the share of visitors who go on to make a purchase.
Traffic is now easy to measure accurately with modern systems. As consumer behavior keeps shifting, keeping track of this core KPI helps you understand customer behavior — and acting on that analysis is one of the most direct paths to hitting your sales targets.
If you have any questions or feedback, please contact support at [email protected].
