Kepler Analytics, the outside and in-store traffic analytics provider that’s challenging the way retailers think about people counting, released company highlights on key growth contributors for the company in 2023. The company is highlighting some of these milestones at The NRF Big Show (Booth #5965).
“Even in a year marked by significant economic challenges — from market volatility to rising interest rates and inflation — our retail customers used our foot traffic analytics to move faster than the competition, expand market share and deliver incredible growth results in their brick-and-mortar channel,” said Tom Gleeson, CEO, Kepler Analytics. “In the past year, we’ve been laser focused on growth and driving high-performance in our own organization to ensure we’re continuing to support our clients’ growth initiatives.”
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Expand Global Momentum
In October, the company raised an additional $5.5 million USD in capital to support expansion in the North American & EMEA markets. Additionally, Kepler Analytics Founder and Executive Director David Mah’s move to the U.S. in October signaled the company’s strategic investment and expansion in that market.
In addition to Mah’s relocation, Kepler has brought on several strategic hires:
- Danny French, General Manager of Customer Analytics: French’s strategic hire reinforces Kepler’s commitment to helping customers make better, more informed data-driven decisions. French brings more than 20 years of experience in consumer markets across both retail and consulting organizations. Most recently, he served as the Director of Analytics on PwC’s Retail and Consumer team.
- Anthony Foudoulis, Chief Finance Officer: With extensive experience in startup, emerging and online technology-based businesses, Foudoulis is a commercially focused finance executive and leader who focuses on delivering exceptional customer experience to all stakeholders, as well as achieving revenue and profit growth. He brings a breadth of experience in capital management and providing strategic and tactical advice to maximize returns to shareholders.
- Tyler Jarratt, Vice President of Sales, Americas: Jarratt brings extensive experience from across the retail and business development landscape, having previously held roles at Oracle, Dentsu-Aegis Network, Sensis, ChannelAdvisor and more. He also founded Enrich Trading Group, a full-service marketplace agency to help retailers and manufacturers plan, launch and accelerate their marketplace growth.
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Continued Product Innovation
Kepler recently introduced a new metric to its Exterior Traffic Toolkit, Surrounding Active Shoppers. The disruptive metric allows retailers to measure their share of foot traffic within 150 feet of their stores, and grow their share of active shoppers compared to their competition.
In addition, Kepler has made significant improvements to its analytics dashboard, including:
- New firmware that improves sensor performance
- Infrastructure modernization that provides better global scalability and industry leading system up-time
- Improved proactive data monitoring to improve customer response times and system accuracy
Customer Momentum Across the Globe
The company brought on more than 65 new customers across North America, Asia Pacific and Europe. The new clients span across nearly every retail vertical. Kepler continues to see strong traction with current and prospective customers. In 2023, one client experienced a 15 percent increase in its Sales Conversion Rate and a 14 percent increase in Average Transaction Value, after implementing the Kepler fitting room solution. Further, as a result of the team’s efforts to provide the best possible experience to its customers, Kepler achieved a positive net promoter score (NPS) of 58.
Market Insights
Kepler shares insights shaped by its industry expertise and platform data. Some of the key highlights of shopper behavior and retail performance in 2023 are:
- Household budgets are under pressure – In the U.S. and globally, consumers have been feeling cost of living pressures driven by higher inflation and interest rates. Kepler has seen these factors become increasingly prevalent as 2023 progressed. In Q1 2023, Kepler saw retail sales up two percent versus 2022 but by Q3 2023 sales were down nine percent on 2022. Overall sales ended the year down five percent versus 2022.
- The rise of the considered consumer – Consumers have become much more purposeful in their shopping missions this year. Consumers are less focused on window shopping (foot traffic outside stores is down eight percent versus 2022). Instead, more consumers are going to the shops with a specific purchase intent as demonstrated by shopfront conversion (the percentage of passer-by traffic that enters a store) increasing by five percent and thus inside store traffic declining only four percent versus 2022.
- Importance of Black Friday – With consumers becoming increasingly value focused, the importance of Black Friday in the annual retail calendar continues to grow. During the Black Friday week Kepler’s customers experienced 50 percent higher inside store traffic and almost double the sales of an average week in 2023. On average, one in two people who entered a store ended up making a purchase.
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Projections for 2024
In addition to Kepler’s reflection on 2023, they also disclosed their projections for 2024.
- Difficult trading environment in Q1 2024 – Kepler Analytics are anticipating that trading conditions in Q1 2024 will be worse than Q4 2023 (and more in line with Q3 2023) as consumers recover from their Black Friday and holiday spending. Pressure on household budgets will remain high with continuing inflation and little prospect of significant interest rate relief in the short-term.
- Brick-and-mortar data will be used to optimize sales –Ecommerce and in-store retail approaches are converging to drive more comprehensive data insights. This provides better visibility to enhance the shopper experience and conversion rates. In the same way that ecommerce journeys can be easily tracked to improve conversion rates, retailers are turning to data on passerby traffic, in-store traffic, fitting room conversions and more to improve the funnel of their brick-and-mortar stores. This level of understanding will help retailers on their journey to provide seamless omnichannel experiences for their customers.
- The retailers that win will be able to quickly measure and test their theories – Retail trends are becoming much more short-lived, which means that retailers need the ability to quickly test what’s working and what’s not — and subsequently make fast, informed decisions on how to proceed. Retailers that will succeed in 2024 will be those with the ability to measure the impact of what they are doing — such as a new promotion, window display or fitting room — and to quickly make changes if it’s not working as desired. This will ensure that retailers are no longer stuck in a trend or promotion that’s not driving results.
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]
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