Counting Technologies

What is People/Door Counting?

People counting may be the most overlooked and valuable tool for the retail manager today.

People counting is simply the measurement of the visitor traffic that flows into and around retail stores, malls, sporting venues, or wherever potential customers may be found. Counting visitor traffic will help maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of employees, floor area, advertising dollar, and sales potential of a business.

Even today, a primary method for counting traffic involves hiring human auditors to stand and manually tally the number of visitors who pass by a certain location. But human based data collection comes at great expense. Consequently, ongoing traffic measurement has been cost-prohibitive for most retailers. This is no longer the case.

New technologies, such as infrared and digital video, allow the means to measure, analyze, and report customer traffic at an affordable price not possible before now. The accuracy, reliability, and understanding of factors that affect counting using new technologies are well known.

Who uses People Counting?

People counting can provide a unique insight into the movement of individuals. Currently, some of the industries using people counting solutions include:


The use of people counting is not limited to the entry/exit point of a company's business, but has a wide range of applications that provide information to management on the volume and flow of people throughout a location. Some examples of organizations currently using people counters in every location include:

Nearly every store or entity may have slightly different information needs and use for measuring the volume, direction, and time of their people traffic.