How to Identify the Reasons for No-Sale Using Your Store’s Heatmap
Quick Summary:
We’ve already talked about heatmaps in another post here, but it’s worth highlighting another major benefit of this tool: identifying the reasons for no-sale. As previously mentioned, heatmaps are powerful tools for store managers, helping them understand consumer behavior, optimize layouts, and identify low-attraction areas. But today, AlterVision explains another powerful use of heatmaps—understanding why products don’t sell. Take a look at the flowchart we’ve prepared to help you increase your revenue!
Don’t Rely 100% on Your Team’s Engagement!
Which store or chain manager wouldn’t want to know why products aren’t converting? Selling is an art that depends on many factors—more than 70% of the time, sales are driven by emotional and impulsive decisions, as discussed in another blog post. So, optimizing this process isn’t easy. Many variables affect a sale, such as store design, music, atmosphere, and even the product’s size, color, and design.
Many store managers try to uncover the reasons behind no-sales through their sales teams using tablets placed around the store, individual note-takers, or even simple notebooks. However, over time, engagement from salespeople tends to decline, these methods fall apart, and managers are left in the dark again—forced to make decisions without truly understanding why items aren’t selling. Relying too much on the sales team makes it harder to adopt solid metrics for conversions, store optimization, and no-sale reasons—ultimately impacting revenue growth.
How to Use Your Store’s Heatmap
We’ve prepared a flowchart to help analyze the reasons behind no-sales using your store’s heatmap. These reasons can be divided into two main types. The first is related to poor product presentation in the store environment—like bad location or lighting. The second relates to the product itself—its size, design, or color.
With a heatmap, you can identify the hot zones in your store and analyze where the product is placed. Let’s consider an example: suppose product XYZ isn’t selling as expected and it’s your mission to understand why. Step one is to move the product to a new location and observe whether sales improve. If not, use the heatmap to select a hot zone with high traffic and dwell time. If sales increase, the problem was likely with the store layout—the product wasn’t being seen, so it wasn’t being purchased.
However, if the product is already in a hot zone and still isn’t performing, it’s time to gather feedback from your team. Ask your salespeople about customer opinions on pricing, design, color, etc. This feedback is vital for improving future purchasing decisions and planning possible promotions. Check out the flowchart below to help guide this process:
Lowering Costs
Investing in heatmap software not only boosts your revenue—it also helps reduce costs. In the previous sections, we focused on increasing revenue. However, one of the largest costs for retailers is tied up in immobilized capital—your inventory. Besides locking up funds, inventory requires suitable storage.
Using AlterVision’s heatmap software, which helps optimize store design and understand the reasons behind no-sales, you can reduce a product’s time on the shelf. Store managers can plan action sequences based on data and customer behavior, rather than depending on sales teams to manually track no-sale reasons.
Quick Summary:
Whenever you’re investing in new services for your store—like software or consulting—always calculate the ROI (return on investment). This allows you to compare the product’s cost with the value it generates. For instance, assess whether implementing heatmap software increases your average ticket after changes are made.
