Retailers spend considerable time and money trying to figure out foot traffic patterns in stores. How and where goods are displayed in a store can make a huge difference in how much a shopper will buy.

Naturally retailers want to place items inside the stores where they are most likely to be seen -- and purchased -- by shoppers. These studies even extend so far as to suggest proper places to locate entrances, check-out counters, etc.

If you have ever read any of these studies, they are quite fascinating in what they can tell you about human nature, shoppers' behavior and desired floorplans.

To gather such information, in the days before technology the market research firms placed trained observers around stores who watched shoppers' movements and noted them on clipboards.

Today the researchers are likely to use video cameras to track movements.

In larger stores, RFID is actually being used to track traffic patterns. For instance, in stores such as supermarkets where there are shopping carts, RFID tags can be placed on the carts in one such implementation, called PathTracker:

PathTracker consists of a series of antennae implanted in a store's ceiling that communicate with RFID tags placed in shopping carts and baskets. The system, developed in conjunction with WhereNet (Santa Clara, Calif.), tracks individual shoppers as they travel around the store, and does so in real time. About 300 carts and hand baskets at a given store are tagged and monitored, which provides the critical mass needed to yield a statistically significant analysis. PathTracker can identify the "hot spots" and "cold spots" on the floor - where shoppers most often travel and where they do not - by creating a schematic called "Shopper Density."

One key finding by PathTracker: Most shoppers prefer to go down the aisles, starting at the back of the store, and moving to the front. The wise retailer, then, will focus toward the back of the store - facing promotional displays toward the back and placing products promoted in weekly circulars toward the rear of the aisles.

Another finding uncovered by PathTracker is the "counter culture" of a typical supermarket.

"With everything being equal, shoppers prefer to shop counterclockwise," explains Mark Heckman, VP of Retail Insights for Sorensen Associates. "They're basically oriented that way, and stores that are designed to accommodate a counterclockwise flow have the best chance of creating a productive environment for the consumer."

It would seem to me that RFID offers distinct advantages over manual tracking of shoppers or even video tracking. With RFID the precise location of a shopper and how long they lingered in a particular spot can be transmitted instanteously, along with exact times, without the need to laboriously transcribe all that information by hand.

Via "Facts, Figures and the Future," a monthly newsletter edited by Phil Lempert. The full text of the newsletter is available online here.