Looking only at a display's overall average performance hides the difference between the top, middle, and bottom shelves. Which shelf is the real golden zone only shows up once you look shelf by shelf.
What it shows
The shelf heatmap shows the rate from visit to exposure and from exposure to pickup, by shelf level (top, middle, bottom), as color intensity.
A shelf with high exposure but low pickup catches the eye but doesn't get picked up. Suspect the price or the display method first.
When to use it
Use it to optimize product placement, find the golden zone (the best-selling shelf), and analyze SKU efficiency.
A worked example
Here's an example. Say on a three-tier display, the top shelf gets high exposure but low pickup, while the middle shelf is high on both. Move a higher-margin new arrival to the middle shelf, the golden zone, and reconsider pricing on the top shelf.
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 pickup by shelf with segment comparison to split out which group responds to which shelf.
- Act — Design the display mix and POP messaging differently per target group.
- Verify — Use shelf analysis to re-measure pickup rate by shelf.
This is an illustrative scenario: a color-cosmetics corner where group differences were known only by a manager's instinct.
High exposure with low pickup means you should suspect the price or the display method. To see shelf-level numbers laid out in a table, continue with shelf analysis. Check out the shelf heatmap in saai insight.
