“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
- Seneca
This year, Motionloft is offering an exclusive RECon-only deal with prices too good to post online.
Stop by booth 314 in the Marketplace Mall during ICSC’s RECon and take advantage of our limited time offer. There has never been a better time to start using Motionloft’s innovative technology.
Find us in the Marketplace Mall
Every May, the shopping center industry gathers in Las Vegas for ICSC’s RECon. While walking through a casino on the way back from the convention center, one may remember the adage, “The house always wins.” Though casinos are designed to get customers to part with their money, this doesn’t have to be the case while making deals at RECon.
Motionloft provides real world pedestrian and vehicle traffic analytics that allow retailers to make better informed decisions. Data collection is continuous and never takes a break – showing historical trends, as well as real-time information. Motionloft’s visual analytics allow retailers to make better informed decisions faster than ever.
This year, don’t gamble on decisions at RECon – stop by booth 314 in Marketplace Mall and learn more about the best real world analytics tool ever.
Photo courtesy of Bakery Square’s Facebook Page
Last December, we brought you the story of Winter Wonderland – an account of how Walnut Capital was bringing the Pittsburgh community together at Bakery Square through creative and fun events. The Motionloft team was impressed by the crowds Bakery Square brought out to their last I Made It! event and looked forward to monitoring their next community driven gathering. Bakery Square hosted their 2nd Annual BkSq Family Fun in the Square last Saturday and it was another success! There were entertainers, food trucks, and a 21+ fundraiser, as well as a special I Made It! Jr + Healthy Living Market.
The Earth Day themed celebration brought out phenomenal crowds, increasing the midday pedestrians per block per hour significantly, according to Motionloft’s real world analytics. At its peak, pedestrian activity increased 500.85% over recent Saturdays! This is great news for Walnut Capital, Bakery Square retailers, and the local community. We look forward to monitoring future events at Bakery Square that encourage customers, merchants, and property management to come together for fun and a good cause.
Photo courtesy of Bakery Square’s Facebook Page
San Francisco hosted the nation’s first city-wide Walk to Work Day last Friday, April 12th in an effort from Walk San Francisco to promote walking as a sustainable and safe means of transportation throughout the city. Many local businesses joined in the event by offering treats and discounts to walkers and Show Dogs on Market Street hosted a Walk to Work Happy Hour in the evening. The Motionloft team monitored pedestrian activity during the Walk to Work event and we are pleased to share a few insights from our gathered data.
We compared Friday morning’s pedestrian activity with the previous month’s data, gathered during the same hours on Fridays. Walk to Work Day saw a 20% increase in pedestrian activity throughout the entire city of San Francisco! A few of the neighborhoods that saw a notable increase in pedestrian activity during the morning commute hours were Civic Center, SoMa, South Beach, and Union Square.
Though there was an increase in pedestrian activity between 7 and 10 am on April 12th, San Francisco’s vehicular traffic remained average for this time of year. The most significant change in pedestrian activity was seen during Show Dog’s hosted Walk to Work Happy Hour – commuters turned out in nearly double the numbers from previous Fridays between 5:30 and 7:30 pm!
The Motionloft team is looking forward to working with Walk SF in future Walk to Work Days and we are prepared for an even greater increase in participation with each passing year!
By Krysta Gahagen, Community Manager
As an alumna of the University of North Carolina, March Madness feels like a major holiday season. Though this year hasn’t been the best for my boys in blue, I have received just as many bracket invitations as ever. Most years, I pick my brackets blindly – relying on gut feelings, ESPN sound bites, and a loyalty to UNC. However, it is not surprising that I have rarely had winning brackets.
As I was staring at a mostly empty bracket last night (see below), it occurred to me that my techniques of choosing a winning team are similar to how many retailers traditionally approach site selection. We both go enter into a decision with a hunch based on intuition, mull over outdated data, and hope that it all works out in the end. This March is the perfect time to end that cycle and the best way to do that is by employing real data – know recent trends in vehicle and pedestrian activity in both your neighborhood and on your block, watch as metrics update in real time, and compare accurate information on multiple locations.
If you don’t get real with your site selection process, you may find yourself as uncertain about a store location as I currently am about my bracket. Let’s leave trivial matters up to chance and use real data to inform important decisions.
Go Heels!
Last year, Motionloft made our ICSC debut at the ICSC Retail Real Estate Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. We are very excited to return to RECon this year for more networking, deal making, and educational opportunities. There will be over 30,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors – we look forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting new people at our booth!
Schedule a time to meet by clicking here and check us out on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+! Stay up to date on the latest news by visiting this blog or via social media.
One block’s distance can make a huge difference in pedestrian and vehicle totals.
Photo by Christina Shields Photography
The iconic quote from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come” seems to be the motto of many shopping centers, as the property owners and managers take a back seat once contracts have been negotiated and leases signed. But can shopping centers always rely on the stores they house to provide adequate pedestrian activity? Much can be learned from shopping centers that are fostering a sense of community within their developments – and those properties are having surprising results!
Bakery Square is a perfect example of a mixed-use development working to benefit both the shoppers and retailers. Rather than relying on stores to offer incentives to draw in crowds and hoping that shoppers spend additional time window shopping, Pittsburgh’s Bakery Square has established itself as not only a shopping destination, but also as a place where families can spend time together. The community that has been cultivated at this popular shopping district can be an inspiration for property managers everywhere.
Photo by Christina Shield Photography
While Black Friday shopping was markedly a success with brick and mortar retailers this year, Bakery Square saw the need for community focused events to bring shoppers together. Gregg Perelman of Walnut Capital explained that while shoppers are drawn to particular stores at Bakery Square, they do not necessarily visit many other stores on their shopping excursions. He noted that, being a mixed-use development, the fitness center and offices see a good portion of center’s foot traffic, so it can be a challenge to bring passersby from the streets into the stores. Bakery Square’s answer to this? An event that would promote local vendors, provide entertainment for children and adults, and encourage shoppers to mill about from store to store. This event was called Winter Wonderland.
Bakery Square’s pedestrian activity during Winter Wonderland (November 30th and December 1st) compared to the start of the holiday shopping season one week prior (November 23rd and 24th). Black Friday and the following Saturday saw steady activity, but paled in comparison to Winter Wonderland turnout.
I Made It! for the Holidays! kicked off the Winter Wonderland event Friday, November 30th. From 5 pm until 10 pm, a Holiday Marketplace featuring over 85 local vendors and artisans drew in crowds of shoppers. When juxtaposed with a typical Friday this time of year, it is easy to recognize the impact Winter Wonderland had on bringing in a steady flow of shoppers.
The second day of Winter Wonderland continued with I Made It! for the Holidays! and with the addition of photos with Santa (even pets were invited!) and Tapped! Pop Up Beer Garden! with local brews and treats from local restaurants and vendors and music by DJ Gordy Greenawalt. It is clear that each of these components contributed to the success of Winter Wonderland.
Photo by Christina Shields Photography
Perelman spoke to the necessity of events such as Winter Wonderland, “The shoppers like other retailers, but they come for one and they don’t always go to the other stores. During Winter Wonderland, people visited the vendors that were set up and after that they went to Anthropologie and then they went to Free People and so on. In the end, everyone benefitted from people being at Winter Wonderland.” Perelman said that retailers had “taken a chance” on Bakery Square following the mid 2000s purchase by Walnut Capital; since that time Walnut Capital has used a combination of inventiveness and industry expertise to keep retailers, shoppers, and the local community pleased. One of their latest innovations has been the installation of Motionloft sensors throughout the mixed-use development. Offices (most notably, Google), retailers, the fitness center, and the Marriott SpringHill Suites all attract people for different reasons and understanding how they move throughout Bakery Square allows for improved features and attractions. Perelman mentioned the addition of a farmer’s market to Bakery Square once the weather warms up and hinted at another I Made It! Market in the spring.
Photo by Christina Shields Photography
The team at Motionloft extends our deepest condolences to those affected by the devastating tragedy last week in Newtown, Connecticut. The unfathomable events of last Friday are both senseless and sickening. As the community works together for healing, the victims and their friends and families across the nation remain in our thoughts.
San Francisco’s Union Square is a prime shopping location year round, so it comes as no surprise that Black Friday led to an increase in pedestrian traffic in Union Square as shoppers came out in droves to take advantage of discounts and deals. There was an increase in pedestrians per block per hour around midnight, when a number of larger chain retailers, such as Macy’s, Urban Outfitters, and Old Navy, opened their doors for the most dedicated midnight shoppers. Numbers of pedestrians passing by retailers declined in the following hours, as shoppers spent time inside stores racking up holiday deals. Most other Union Square retailers opened their doors between 8 and 10 am, which led to another increase in people moving from store to store.
We have mentioned in a previous blog post that statistical sampling is an unreliable means of assessing pedestrian activity and the 5 to 6 pm hour is a great example of why this is the case. If a hand count had been performed during that hour alone each Friday for the month of November, one could extrapolate that November 2nd had a higher pedestrian turnout than Black Friday (which is, obviously, incorrect). Similarly, vehicles counts by themselves are often insubstantial when determining the impact of sales and marketing campaigns in high foot traffic areas. Due to limited parking, shoppers in Union Square often park cars and move around on foot. A comparison of pedestrian and vehicle activity from Black Friday is shown below.
The combination of vehicle and pedestrian counts are vital to understanding when and how people are moving throughout shopping areas such as Union Square, San Francisco. It is by continuously gathering information that one can ensure the most accurate and reliable data analysis. This holiday season, view trends over time and know the true impact of marketing campaigns and sales. Don’t settle for adequate – get the entire picture with Motionloft data.
