Every visitor's path through a store is different. Instead of examining that many routes one at a time, there's a way to find the single one most customers actually followed.
Pick an entrance and the representative route from it connects up. A display the route never reaches is a display sitting off the path. Names that would identify the store or its products are masked. The product UI shown is the Korean build.
What it shows
Representative path traces the order of displays and fixtures a customer visits from entry to exit, then rolls individual paths up into the one route that repeats most often.
If the representative path shifts every time the season or a promotion changes, that shift is a sign your new layout or display is actually working as intended.
When to use it
Use it to see at a glance how customer paths shift with changes in merchandising, season, or promotion, and as grounds for measuring performance and drafting new operating plans.
A worked example
Here's an example. Say the representative path for customers entering the front door runs "Zone A, through Zone B, to checkout." Concentrating new arrivals and higher-margin products along that route maximizes their exposure. After a layout change, check the representative path again the same way to see whether it moved as intended.
Which features to read it with
One feature alone rarely gets you to the cause. The pattern that repeats is: overlay a second feature to narrow the cause, act, then re-measure with a third.
- Measure — Overlay the representative path with zone interest analysis to find which display sits off the main route.
- Act — Move that display onto the route, closer to the entrance, and add directional signage.
- Verify — Use funnel analysis to re-measure visits and purchase conversion at that display.
This is an illustrative scenario: a new-arrivals corner sitting off the main path while sales fell short of target.
Your key resources belong on the route most customers actually followed. To look at movement between zones in more detail, see zone-to-zone traffic; to see every route at once, see visitor flow. Check out representative path in saai insight.
