In most large retail shopping centres it is not uncommon to find gaggles of shoppers crowded around a map, trying to figure out how to efficiently get to their next shopping destination. Clear and informative wayfinding improves consumers’ shopping experience and should also result in time savings. Traditional wayfinding in most retail shopping centres consist of information booths and large maps placed strategically at entrances and designated central locations. What is becoming more common are digital directories through which consumers can choose a specific store on an electronic screen and then see the most efficient route mapped out for them.
The implementation of digital directories makes wayfinding easier and is helpful to time strapped shoppers. A natural question is: what do shoppers do with this saved time? They might plausibly leave the shopping centre earlier in order to attend to other tasks or responsibilities. Alternatively, it is also possible that they spend the saved time to visit other stores and conduct more impulse shopping as opposed to pre-planned purchases. In order to test these competing hypotheses, we were engaged to conduct an independent study on the effects of digital directories on store specific sales in three large shopping centres in different Canadian cities, using advanced quantitative methods based on several months of data.
The study investigated the effects of wayfinding by using advanced statistical methods. The statistical findings revealed some very strong correlations between the introduction of digital directories and store specific sales. On average, the introduction of directories was associated with a 3%-6% rise in retail sales across stores. Further, these findings were still robust, six months after their introduction, demonstrating that the presence of these impacts were not transitory. Another result, which emerged is that some stores experienced far larger increases than others.
The research has brought into focus new behavioural insights that have rather significant implications for retail stores and shopping centre operators themselves. Digital directories are significantly associated with increased sales. In some case, this allows consumers to use their time savings to browse more stores, which leads to an increased likelihood of impulse shopping. Or it could be that directories are somehow associated with psychological commitment that might also result in higher sales. For the present, it can be confirmed that the introduction of digital directories can be clearly linked to more sales and hence, retail profitability.