Shop area visit ratio, stay time, and sales outcomes: In-depth analysis based on RFID data

Prior research identifies that "visit" and "stay" relate positively to individual's purchase outcome. However, the mechanism that how do these two factors affect sales outcomes at an aggregated level is still unclear. This study posits that shop area visit ratio leads to sales outcomes through the effects on stay time, and the influence paths of shop area visit ratio and stay time on sales outcomes differ across products. To further clarify the mechanism, we propose a mediation model, to study how shop area visit ratio and stay time affect purchasers ratio and purchase volume. The data in our study are used from ratio frequency identification (RFID) technology, and matched with point-of-sale (POS) data. The major result suggests that for "selected products", the two sales outcomes (i.e., purchasers ratio and purchase volume) are mainly determined by stay time, while for "planned products", which depends more on shop area visit ratio than stay time. This finding can help retailers to visualize the process of customers' in-store shopping, and to better understand the importance of shop area visit ratio and stay time.