Ever wonder why some stores convert browsers into buyers while others struggle despite decent foot traffic? This eye-opening conversation with Mark Ryski, founder of HeadCount Corporation and author of Store Traffic is a Gift, reveals how retailers and brands are missing a massive opportunity hiding in plain sight.
At its core, store traffic represents the ultimate denominator and demand signal for physical retail. Yet surprisingly, only about half of retailers today actually track it properly, instead relying on transaction counts that miss crucial insights about non-buying visitors. Mark explains why this oversight leads to misaligned staffing, missed conversion opportunities, and ultimately, lost sales.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Mark reveals how dramatically conversion rates can vary within the same retail chain – from as low as 30% to as high as 75%. These "super converting" stores hold the secrets to chainwide improvement, offering practical lessons that can be replicated across locations. For brands and suppliers, understanding traffic patterns provides leverage when negotiating promotional opportunities and helps quantify the true exposure their products receive.
Perhaps most compelling is Mark's perspective on friction in the shopping journey. While retailers endlessly discuss the importance of reducing friction, most lack effective methods to measure it. Conversion rates provide that measurement, highlighting exactly when and where customers abandon their shopping journey. By tracking hourly traffic and conversion, retailers can pinpoint precisely when friction occurs and take targeted action to address it.
For anyone involved in physical retail – whether you're managing stores, developing products, or analyzing performance – this conversation will transform how you think about traffic data and its strategic value. Tune in to discover practical ways to treat traffic as the precious gift it truly is and unlock the full potential of your physical retail presence.
More About this Episode
Why Store Traffic is the Most Undervalued Asset in Retail Today
In the world of modern retail, conversations tend to orbit around data, digital platforms, retail media, AI, and omnichannel strategy. Yet amidst all this innovation, there's a fundamental, often overlooked asset sitting right in front of us, store traffic. As retailers and brands push for deeper insights and faster analytics, many still fail to appreciate the strategic potential of understanding who walks into their stores and why they do or don’t convert.
In this episode of The Digital Front Door, I had the privilege of speaking with Mark Ryski, the founder and CEO of HeadCount Corporation and a leading expert in shopper traffic and conversion analytics. Mark’s central message is both profound and refreshingly straightforward: Store traffic is a gift, not just a KPI, not just a statistic, but a core business driver that should be treated as a strategic asset.
Let’s explore why that is.
Traffic Is the Ultimate Denominator
One of the key takeaways from my conversation with Mark was the idea that store traffic is the ultimate denominator. Everything happening inside a physical retail location, from BOPIS orders and endcap promotions to in-aisle engagement and labor scheduling, must be measured in relation to traffic to have any real business meaning.
Yet many retailers continue to confuse transactions with traffic. This is especially problematic when only the buyers are counted, not the browsers. As Mark aptly pointed out, “If you’re only measuring people who buy, you’re missing the entire demand signal.”
Here’s the hard truth: Not all store visits end in a sale, but every sale starts with a visit. If you’re not accounting for everyone who walked through your door, then you’re making critical decisions with only part of the picture.
More Traffic ≠ More Sales
Counterintuitive as it may seem, more traffic doesn’t always mean more revenue. In fact, Mark’s research shows that increased traffic can sometimes correlate with lower sales. Why? Because if the store isn’t optimized to handle that traffic, whether due to poor merchandising, under-staffing, or operational bottlenecks, then those extra visitors simply become lost opportunities.
What this proves is that conversion matters more than ever. Without visibility into what percentage of visitors are actually making purchases, and at what times, retailers are flying blind.
This is especially relevant as stores evolve from transactional hubs to experiential centers. It’s no longer about just getting people in the door; it’s about delivering on their intent to purchase. Traffic without conversion is friction in disguise.
Conversion: The Ultimate Friction Metric
When we talk about "friction" in retail, we often mean the invisible forces that cause a customer to abandon their cart or leave a store empty-handed. Whether it's long lines, poor stock levels, confusing layouts, or inattentive staff, friction is the enemy of conversion.
Mark frames this beautifully: “Conversion rates are how you measure friction.”
By analyzing hourly traffic data alongside hourly conversion rates, retailers can pinpoint when friction is happening. For example, a consistent drop in conversions between 3–5 PM every Tuesday might indicate a staffing issue or a breakdown in merchandising. Once you identify the problem, you can test solutions, such as opening another register or repositioning key products, and measure the impact immediately.
This kind of operational intelligence is only possible if you're measuring traffic effectively in the first place.
Staffing to Traffic, Not Sales
One of the most actionable ideas from our discussion was Mark’s strong belief that store labor should be scheduled based on traffic, not sales. Unfortunately, many retailers still allocate staffing hours based on last year’s sales data, ignoring real-time or forecasted customer visits.
The risk? Your team is least available when customer traffic is highest. The result? Lower conversion, frustrated customers, and missed sales.
Retailers should instead align staffing to their peak traffic windows, even if those windows don’t currently generate the highest sales. Think of your store staff as the front-line conversion engine. Your traffic might be static, but your ability to serve and convert that traffic is where the true opportunity lies.
Super Converting Stores: Your Hidden Advantage
One of the more fascinating concepts Mark introduced is that of “Super Converting Stores.” These are stores that outperform their peers in conversion, not because they get the most traffic, but because they convert visitors at a higher rate.
In one study of an 800-store chain, Mark found conversion rates ranged from 30% to 75%. That’s not just statistical noise, that’s strategic insight. Why can some stores do so much better than others with similar products, layout, and systems?
The point isn’t just to celebrate the winners, it’s to study them. What are those store teams doing differently? Are they better at customer service? More proactive in merchandising? Have stronger managers? Once identified, those behaviors can be replicated across the network, driving chain-wide improvements without major investment.
And here’s the kicker: Some of the highest-performing stores weren't the flagship locations; they were old, low-traffic stores with outstanding teams. The lesson? Don’t overlook your quiet winners.
SKU-Level Conversion: A New Lens for Brands
For consumer brands and suppliers, Mark shared another powerful idea: SKU-level conversion rates. This goes beyond just sell-through and looks at how many store visitors saw a product and decided to buy it.
This matters enormously in scenarios where store traffic is declining. A brand might see lower sales and think a product is underperforming, but if the conversion rate is rising, that SKU is actually gaining share of shopper intent.
It also reframes how we evaluate promotional performance. When a product is featured in an endcap or highlighted in a promotion, brands and retailers alike should ask: Did traffic in that area go up? Did conversion improve? The answers to these questions determine true ROI.
Retail Media, Accountability, and Exposure
Retail media networks are quickly becoming a critical monetization strategy for retailers. But as Mark reminded us, exposure doesn’t always equal effectiveness. Brands need more than ad placements; they need data.
Retailers can and should provide footfall estimates, zone traffic, and exposure metrics to support media spend. If a CPG company is investing in a high-profile endcap, it should know how many shoppers passed by, paused, and purchased.
Mark was doing this before retail media had a name, providing vendors with circulation estimates for store marketing activations. And you know what? It worked. Because when you can show traffic and exposure, you can justify the spend, even if the sales lift is uncertain.
AI: A Tool, Not a Shortcut
Of course, no modern retail discussion is complete without touching on AI. While the potential is vast, Mark made an important point: AI is only as good as the data it's built on.
If you’re not capturing and using store traffic and conversion data, no AI can save you. Algorithms won’t fix broken operations or disconnected strategies. Instead, AI should be seen as a tool to enhance human insight, not replace it.
When AI is powered by accurate traffic data, it can help with labor forecasting, promotional planning, and even store layout optimization. But if your foundational metrics are flawed or incomplete, you’ll be building predictive models on sand.
Physical Retail Is Far from Dead
In the wake of the pandemic, many were quick to forecast a retail apocalypse. But Mark’s view is refreshingly bullish. Despite the growth of e-commerce, physical stores still account for 75–80% of all retail transactions.
Why? Because stores offer something digital can’t, immediacy, sensory experience, and human interaction. There’s a reason shoppers still go out of their way to visit stores, touch products, and engage with associates.
In Mark’s words, “Store traffic is a precious, non-renewable resource.” Every visitor is a chance to win loyalty or lose it forever. That’s why tracking, analyzing, and acting on store traffic is more important today than ever before.
The Bottom Line: Stop Managing to Averages
One of the most impactful lessons from this episode is the danger of managing by averages. When retailers and brands only look at aggregate performance, they miss the rich stories playing out at individual locations.
Some stores are overperforming. Others are quietly struggling. The only way to unlock that value is to look deeper, into traffic, into conversion, into the why behind the what.
That’s how you move from reactive management to proactive performance optimization.
Final Thoughts
Retail is evolving, but the fundamentals remain. Store traffic isn’t just a metric; it’s a mirror into your operation. It tells you how effective your marketing is, how well your store is staffed, how compelling your product is, and whether your shopper journey is working.
If you’re not measuring traffic and conversion, you’re not managing your stores; you’re just guessing.
As Mark Ryski shows us, store traffic isn’t just a KPI; it’s a gift. Treat it accordingly.
