March 11, 2015: Purple WiFi, the cloud-based Social WiFi software company, today announced the inclusion of Location Based Services in its fast, secure, WiFi solution, which offers commercial return to businesses that offer free WiFi to visitors.
Location Based Services offer the host venue an unprecedented level of insight into consumer information and behaviour. It also provides opportunities to market to and engage customers directly via features such as Facebook demographic reporting, zoning reporting and vouchering.
Nisa Cardiff and Camden Market are already utilising the geo-fencing feature, drawing invisible lines around particular sales areas or locations. This allows the business to gauge what purchases the customer might be considering and send information or offers in real-time to their mobile device.
Purple WiFi also allows the business to understand who is visiting and using the free WiFi, how long they are online, as well as their age, gender and any other relevant information that’s included in their social networking profile.
Nisa in Cardiff have found that providing free Purple WiFi has brought more customers into the shop and increased their dwell time. As a result, sales of coffee, snacks and other products have increased.
Using Location Based Services allows Nisa to track the customer’s journey around the store and adjust product displays accordingly. The team has already identified corners of the shop where nobody goes, which had not been recognised previously. They have also been able to increase their social media engagement, gaining ‘Likes’ and ‘Follows’ which provide an opportunity for regular dialogue with their customers.
At Camden Market, the team has taken advantage of Purple WiFi’s Facebook demographic and zoning reporting capabilities. This has enabled the identification of visitor’s interest preferences from Facebook, which can be compared with national averages in order to show distinctive characteristics and better target marketing campaigns for specific traders. Camden Market has found the vouchering tool to be particularly useful for photography competitions and promoting live events.
In addition, Camden Market has also looked at footfall in detail across the estate, identifying choke points and pinpointing common entrance and exit points, as well as how men move through the space versus women.
The customer has the right to opt-in or opt-out of tracking. If a customer is not opted in, Purple WiFi’s software can still detect an anonymous MAC address, confirm whether that MAC address is a new or repeat visitor, and see how long that device stays.
If a customer is opted in, the device MAC address can be linked to personal data, such as their age, gender, name, email address, location, language, Likes, etc. meaning relevant vouchers can be pushed to the visitor.
David Morris, Head of IT at Nisa Retail Ltd, comments: “The system is providing us with essential demographic information about consumers visiting these sites. The intention is to use this data to gain competitive advantage, drive consumer promotional activity and record the impact against sales.”
Jac Timms, IT Manager, Camden Market, comments “Providing a large outdoor and indoor public hotspot over Camden Market had its challenges, but thanks to Purple WiFi’s cloud based solution we were able to get up and running very rapidly. The set up was fast and Purple WiFi helped us to fine tune the system and increase location accuracy, it was smooth from start to finish. Being able to market to visitors when they arrive at specific venues combined with rich analytics has been a real bonus for us.”
Gavin Wheeldon, CEO, Purple WiFi comments: “Purple WiFi’s Location Based Services takes WiFi to a new level for the retailer and the customer. From the retailer’s point of view, useful customer information and footfall data can be collected and used to better target offers and in-store signage.
“From the customer’s point of view, offers can be delivered direct to their device when they are in the location looking at a product area, meaning the offer is relevant there and then. But this is only the beginning; the next stage of development might include functionality such as requesting help from retail assistants, and skipping queues to pay all via the customer’s mobile device.”
About Purple WiFi http://purplewifi.net
Purple WiFi provides a fast, secure, Social WiFi solution to businesses wishing to offer free WiFi to visitors. The business is provided with valuable analytical data to enable more effective marketing.
Purple WiFi is cloud-based and natively integrates with most leading wireless hardware manufacturers.
The service is growing quickly across 88 countries with an active reseller base of over 300 in 60 countries. Growth is being seen in all sectors, most notably in hospitality (where people have time to spend online), retail (where footfall tracking is essential), healthcare (offering transparency around service and communication) and entire cities moving towards the Internet of Things.
Purple WiFi is also a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), highlighting its commitment to content filtering and minimising access to abusive online content.