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An independent shop with clothes rails, shelves and plants by the window

Know your footfall. Bring it back

Guest Wi-Fi marketing and footfall analytics for shops.

Online, you know every visitor. In store, you know the till total. Guest Wi-Fi closes the gap: who came in, who came back, and a consented list for the next promotion.

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Harbour & Co. (demo shop) sign-in page on the retail template with a “This week in store” panel and an optional postcode field

What can a shop learn from its guest Wi-Fi?

From sign-ins: how many customers are new or returning, the busiest hours per store and, in aggregate, the postcode areas they come from. With footfall analytics (Enterprise), your access points also count passers-by and visitors, dwell time and how many walk in, without storing MAC addresses. Customers who opt in can receive a welcome code for the till.

We have no idea how many people walk past versus walk in.

Footfall and presence analytics from your access points: passers-by, visitors, dwell time, capture rate. MAC addresses are never stored.

The loyalty card lives in a drawer at home.

The phone is the loyalty card: a visit-based reward, redeemed at the till with a single-use code.

Our email list is a spreadsheet from three years ago.

Every sign-in can add an opted-in contact, with the wording and time recorded.

Typical problems venue owners describe to us; not quotes from named customers.

Harbour & Co. (demo shop) sign-in page on the retail template with a “This week in store” panel and an optional postcode field
Retail template
Single-use voucher with a code and QR, shown at the till
Voucher at the till

What retailers do with it

  • Welcome offer at the tillEngageA first sign-in triggers a single-use welcome code, valid this week.
  • Footfall and capture rateEnterprisePassers-by, visitors, dwell time and same-day returns from your access points. Hashed with a daily key; raw sightings deleted after 7 days.
  • Where customers come fromPostcode areas and age bands, aggregated: groups smaller than five are hidden, so no individual can be picked out.
  • Promotions for the quiet hoursEngageThe weekday-by-hour heatmap shows the gaps; a scheduled campaign targets them.

Sign-in pages shown are demo venues on the sector template. Everything on them can be changed.

The retail playbook

Three retail journeys, switched on in a minute.

  1. Welcome offer

    First sign-in triggers a single-use welcome code for the till.

  2. Footfall-timed promotions

    The heatmap shows the quiet slots; a scheduled campaign targets them.

  3. Local advertising

    Postcode-area demographics tell you where the next local ad should run.

Busiest times heatmap: connected sessions by weekday and hour

A garden centre with a café, worked example

Assumes 900 visitors a week, 20% Wi-Fi sign-in, 30% email opt-in and 6-10 access points. Illustrative only, not a customer result.
~55
new opted-in contacts a week
7 × 24
busiest-hours heatmap per site
£179
a month on Engage (6-10 access points, ex VAT)

Guest Wi-Fi set-up and compliance for shops

Typical shop Wi-Fi

A single shop usually has one or two ceiling access points, often TP-Link Omada or Ubiquiti UniFi; garden centres, showrooms and small chains run Cisco Meraki, Aruba Instant or Grandstream GWN across a larger floor. Footfall analytics uses the Meraki Scanning API or GWN presence data, or a generic receiver for other systems; the sign-in page itself works on any of them, by API (UniFi, GWN) or by external portal and RADIUS (the rest).

Footfall, postcodes and consent

Shoppers are in and out quickly, so a retail sign-in asks for little: an email and an optional postcode. Footfall counting needs no sign-in and stores no MAC addresses (they are hashed with a daily key and raw sightings deleted after seven days), but it does need a short “Wi-Fi analytics in use” notice at the door and a legitimate interests assessment, both of which WiFinger supplies. Postcode and age reports hide groups smaller than five, so no individual can be picked out.

Setting up guest Wi-Fi marketing in a shop

  1. Connect the store Wi-Fi

    Add the site, connect the controller and, on Enterprise, switch on footfall for Meraki or GWN.

  2. Publish the retail template

    Add the “This week in store” panel, the postcode field and your follow-us links after Connect.

  3. Turn on the welcome offer

    A first sign-in sends a single-use code valid this week; staff redeem it at the till from any phone.

What retailers use most

  • Retail sign-in template with an optional postcode field
  • Footfall and presence analytics (Enterprise)
  • Postcode-area and age-band demographics, k-anonymised
  • Welcome and visit-based offers redeemed at the till
  • Campaigns to opted-in customers only
  • REST API and signed webhooks for your own tools (Zapier and Make via webhooks — native Zapier app coming)
  • Printable "Free Wi-Fi" QR cards in your colours
See prices

Questions retailers ask

Do we need new Wi-Fi equipment?
No. Grandstream GWN, Ubiquiti UniFi and Aruba Instant connect directly; MikroTik, TP-Link Omada, Cisco Meraki, OpenWrt, pfSense and most business routers with an external captive portal and RADIUS work through the generic connector. Your guest network stays on your hardware.
Does footfall analytics need consent?
Footfall uses anonymised access point signals: the device address is hashed with a daily key before storage and raw sightings are deleted after 7 days. You display a short “Wi-Fi analytics in use” notice, which we provide, and complete a legitimate interests assessment.
Can the till redeem a code without an app?
Yes. Staff use a redeem-only login on any phone or tablet, or scan the QR code on the customer’s screen.
Can we connect our POS?
Not natively yet. The REST API and signed webhooks cover most flows today; Zapier and Make via webhooks — native Zapier app coming.
Which access points does footfall work with?
Cisco Meraki (Scanning API), Grandstream GWN presence, and a generic receiver for other systems that can send presence data.
Can we count footfall without asking anyone to sign in?
Yes, on Enterprise with Meraki or Grandstream GWN: passers-by, visitors and dwell time come from the access points’ presence data, anonymised. Sign-ins add the customer list on top.
Does it work across several shops?
Yes. Each store is a site with its own heatmap and footfall; campaigns can go to one store’s customers or all of them, and the multi-site discount applies from three stores.

Try WiFinger at your shop this week.

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