• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, November 15, 2013

Mobile data is showing some good and bad news for retailers this shopping season.

For the last month, the number of people passing stores is down but the percentage of those people passing by who go into a store is up.

The aggregated data was collected and analyzed by Euclid and is based on foot traffic patterns from some 20 million shopping sessions.  Euclid has traffic counting sensors that measure mobile phones in more than 700 shopping centers, malls and street locations around the U.S.

Foot traffic going by stores in October was down slightly (4%) from the same month last year. However, the number of shoppers who enter a store as a percentage of that foot traffic increased 2% over the same time last year.

But one of the more interesting stats in all the captured data is the one around what Euclid calls bounce rate. That’s the number of shoppers who enter a store but leave within five minutes.

This time around, the bounce rate increased to 11%, up from 9% last year.

For merchants dealing with these fast-paced mobile shoppers, it means there’s less time to make the actual sale.

However, the overall mean time spent from the time a person enters a store until they leave was 22 minutes. This is also a slightly shorter time than last year.

Though it doesn’t capture personal data, the Euclid technology can track repeat visits and that data shows that number to be down from last year as well, with some shoppers (12%) returning to a store location more than once within a month.

This is yet just one more indicator of the capability and opportunity that mobile provides via location, in the ultimate linkage of supply and demand with time and location.

The obvious opportunity here is to provide more relevant marketing messages to influence the purchase decision throughout the Mobile Shopping Life Cycle.

Another recent study by Sociomantic found that mobile consumers are more than four times as likely to be influenced by targeted ads (22% vs. 5%).

These location insights can help fine-tune who gets what message on the path to purchase.

For mobile shoppers, this can translate to more useful -- and usable -- information.