Parking lot monitoring for retail stores

Unlocking hidden potential for customer satisfaction and new business models.

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Parking lot monitoring: improving overall store performance

Being able to offer customers a place to park their car (or bike) while shopping is a valuable extra service that brick-and-mortar retailers can provide. However, providing spaces alone does not exploit the car park’s full potential. Monitoring parking lots and thus creating a database about current and historic car park occupancy is a first step toward unlocking the full potential of parking lots, which are the start and the end of the shopping journey.

Parking lots tend to be very crowded and shoppers have to hunt around for free spaces, which reduces the time available for shopping itself.
An increase of traffic in the parking lot is a first indicator for predicting a rise of traffic in the store. Without an automated notification system, stores cannot punctually initiate suitable responses, such as opening further checkouts.
Without monitoring, an inconvenient or inefficient car park setup might not be detected. And even though store managers might know very well that additional parking facilities are needed to serve more customers at the same time, it might be difficult to justify an expansion of the parking capacity without having specific numbers to hand.
In the majority of cases, parking lots are locked to the public after opening hours to reduce the risk of vandalism and theft. Meanwhile, many residents suffer from a lack of parking possibilities.
Free-of-charge parking is provided only to customers and limited to a defined period. Some people ignore these restrictions and go way over time, which disadvantages other customers.

Benefits at a glance

Detailed insights into the actual usage of the parking space
Opening up new use cases, such as reducing waiting times at checkouts and in-store customer traffic optimization
Identifying add-on services and additional utilization for parking lots opens up new revenue streams for retailers

Up to 20%

of sales are lost on the weekend due to a lack of parking spots - that's according to estimates by customers.

How retail companies benefit from parking lot monitoring

Transparency about utilization

Store managers gain an overview of the current, historic, and average utilization of their car park. In this way, they can detect regular or extraordinary peaks as well as vacancies. Furthermore, they have valid data to evaluate their car park’s performance and detect potential for improvement.

Detection of growth potential

If the car park is heavily used, the availability of data provides reasons for expanding the parking area or offering pick-up services and home delivery. In case the car park is not being used to its full capacity, renting those vacant spaces to local residents or people working nearby can generate new revenue streams.

Convenience for customers

Customers might decide against shopping at a store when parking there is always stressful and time-consuming. Therefore, navigating customers directly to a vacant parking space is not a tool to create an amazing experience, but to create an easy, straightforward process that lets customers forget that they have even parked.

Indication for staff allocation

When parking lot occupancy increases, this is an indication that there will be more footfall within the store soon, so more staff needs to be allocated to service areas and checkouts.

Corporate and social responsibility

In addition, the numbers might support the case for a reduction of the parking lot and using the space for more socially attractive offers, such as playgrounds, herb gardens, product-tasting events, etc.

Managing EV charging stations

If charging is offered free of charge for a certain amount of time, fees can automatically be levied once the time limit has been exceeded. Alternatively, the charging process can be stopped.