• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, April 8, 2014

If nothing else, the tracking of mobile phones in and around stores provides some interesting insights.

For example, the percentage of people passing a store that walk in has increased from a year ago.

And more of the people walking in leave a very short time later.

These are some of the tidbits of information from Euclid’s anonymous tracking of phones as they pass by various shopping malls and stores.

The company says it takes 6 billion measurements a day and analyzes 250 million potential shopping sessions a year across thousands of locations.

In March, the number of shoppers who entered a store as a percentage of total foot traffic was 9%, up a percentage point from the same month last year. However, many of those shoppers entered the store and left relatively quickly.

The study found that 10% of shoppers who entered a store left within five minutes, a couple of percentage points higher than a year ago.

Of course, this begs the question of why, for which there could be numerous explanations.

Shoppers could be more focused, going directly to what they want and buying it.

On the other side, they might be going to the store and finding it did not have precisely what they want, such as being out of stock or not carrying the correct size of clothing.

And then again, a consumer could be going to a store to check out an item before buying it via their phone, online or from a store with a better price after a mobile price check.

Traffic decreased a percentage point from the previous year, so merchants may want to figure out the reasons.

Even the people who didn’t leave a store within five minutes didn’t spend as much time in it as a year ago, decreasing a minute to a 23-minute visit

The number of people who returned to a store location more than once within 30 days totaled 13% of total visits, also down from the same time last year.

Whether short attention span or shorter times in stores, retailers have a limited window to influence all those shoppers who prefer going to a store.