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THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERMARKET SPATIAL LAYOUT ON SHOPPING

BEHAVIOR AND PRODUCT SALES An application of the Ultra-wideband
Indoor Positioning System

Conference Paper · April 2019

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THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERMARKET SPATIAL LAYOUT ON
SHOPPING BEHAVIOR AND PRODUCT SALES

An application of the Ultra-wideband Indoor Positioning System

LIJING YANG1 , BINGYU CHENG2 , NACHUAN DENG3 ,

ZHI ZHOU4 and WEIXIN HUANG5
1,2,3,4,5
Tsinghua University
1,2,3,4
{yanglj18|by-ch14|dengnc14|zhouz14}@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
5
huangwx@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract. Companies and researchers had explored many methods

to record people’s shopping behavior, in order to explore a more
favorable spatial layout. However, few research has been done from
the architectural perspective using fine data. This research aims to
set forth a clear relationship between the layout of the shelves and
shopping behavior, as well as product sales, thus achieving a balance
between customers shopping experience improvement and supermarket
sales promotion. To achieve the goal, we designed experiments to track
the shopping trajectory of many shoppers and set up questionnaires to
get their personal and shopping information. Regarding the equipment
for tracking the trajectory, we adopted the Ultra-Wideband indoor
positioning system, which provides high positioning accuracy and stable
performance. Based on the location data, we found spaces that appealed
to shoppers and spaces where shoppers stayed longer. In addition, by
comparing with the products they ultimately purchased, we found that
buying behavior are highly related with the shoppers’ movements in
the supermarket. Based on the existing analysis, we assume that the
spatial layout of the supermarket will affect people’s impulse purchasing
behavior. The UWB approach turns out to be feasible and can be applied
to other supermarket behavior studies.

Keywords. Shopping behavior; Ultra-Wideband; Supermarket

layout; Trajectory; Quantitative Analysis.

1. Introduction
1.1. PREVIOUS STUDY ON RETAIL SPACE MANAGEMENT
The space management in a supermarket has a remarkable impact on the retail
revenue, therefore retailers are constantly looking for an optimal solution for
the space pattern of shelf allocation. As shelf allocation directly influences the
accessibility of products, the key is to decide how much of what product to be
shelved where and when (Hansen, Raut and Swami, 2010).

Intelligent & Informed, Proceedings of the 24th International Conference of the Association for
Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) 2019, Volume 1, 301-310. © 2019
and published by the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA),
Hong Kong.
302 L. YANG ET AL.

Plenty of research has been done on shelf allocation and models for
optimization have been constructed. The key influence factors of this space
management process range of product characteristics such as volatility, profit
margin (Shaal and Hübner, 2016) and stocking (Borin, Farris, and Freeland, 1994),
to spatial features including the area of product display, the number of facings
(Curhan, 1972), vertical and horizontal location (Hansen, Raut and Swami, 2010),
and cross-space effects (Shaal and Hübner, 2016).
The concept of shelf space elasticity was brought out in order to illustrate the
impact of shelf space change in sales, and cross-space elasticity this impact on
another item. Based on this idea, the retail products can be categorized into three
classes (Brown and Tucker, 1961): those unresponsive to shelf change, those of
general use which give diminishing returns to shelf space increase, and those of
occasional purchase, the only category where the impact of space elasticity is
noticeably high.
The studies on space elasticity has shown the significance of shelf allocation
for impulse purchases and relatively limited effects on other occasions. However,
as shelf space change is difficult to be quantified, previous researchers identify this
variable simply as a display area, an isolate characteristic of the product, without
taking into account the overall layout and mutual effect of the products. Thus
we hope to evaluate shelf space management in a more holistic perspective by
studying consumer’s behavior pattern.

1.2. THE METHODOLOGY OF ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOR SCIENCE

Environmental behavior science aims at studying people’s behavior so as to make
evaluation and optimization for space, therefore, has an enlightening significance
to the process of architecture design.
The methods to collect behavioral data, which can be narrowed down
to position data in the architectural context, has developed in recent years.
Researchers used to conduct field studies such as interview, questionnaire survey,
cognitive map (Lee and Lee, 1997), and covert observation (Borgers et al.,
2006). The behavioral data collected by these methods, however, are static and
incomplete. As the actual movement in architectural space is usually dynamic
and unpredictable, multiple new technologies has made advance. The use of
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ultra-wide band (UWB), radio frequency and ultrasonic wave
has enable solid behavior study by collecting large quantity of position data of
people in a three-dimension space.

1.3. RESEARCH PURPOSE

A reasonable layout of retail shelves can improve overall satisfactory level by
providing convenient shopping routes, and can increase impulse purchases with
more accessible products. The precise retail space optimization is subject to the
complexity of consumer shopping behavior. Although there has already been
discussions on the relationship between supermarket management and consumer
behavior, few researches has been done from the architectural perspective while
supported by solid data. We aimed to bridge this gap by applying the indoor
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SHOPPING BEHAVIOR AND PRODUCT SALES

positioning system of UWB as well as sending questionnaire to the study of

a specific supermarket in Tsinghua University. Combining the objective and
subjective data, evaluation and optimization of shelf allocation in this supermarket
can be conducted. Once the feasibility of the method is verified, the data support
can be brought to any other retail supermarket.

2. Methodology
2.1. EQUIPMENT
Currently there are mainly five Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS) can be used
to identify and track the location of objects or people in real time, which are
known as GPS, RFID, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and UWB. GPS offers a reliable solution
in outdoor circumstances, while most of our movement happens indoors. RFID
only works within a very short range with expensive readers. RFID systems
can only tell when the object has passed certain readers, but cannot give the
spatio-temporal data of the object between two readers. Bluetooth low-Energy
beacons and Wi-Fi-based RTLS are relatively cheaper, but their accuracy usually
varies between 3-10 meters.
Considering their application scenarios, price, accuracy and other factors, we
adopted UWB device in our research. It has the lowest nominal TX power
(-41.3DBm/MHz) among all the other solutions, which is a great advantage of a
portable device since it needs to transfer large information at a relatively low cost
of energy. Due to the wide-band and high pulse rate property of UWB devices,
UWB RTLS can easily limit its accuracy to 10-30cm using time of arrival (TOA)
and trilateration positioning algorithm.
The UWB Real Time Locating System consists of tags, anchors, terminal
server and database (Figure 1). Tags will be disputed to the participants to get
their trajectory. These tags will send a message to nearby anchors at a rate of once
per second. Then those anchors will send those messages to the server through
the wireless network. We also developed a software to analyze those messages,
present tags’ real-time location on the interface.

Figure 1. Composition and working principle of UWB system.

304 L. YANG ET AL.

2.2. EXPERIMENT
2.2.1. Experiment Preparation
We conducted our research in a student supermarket, which is typical and mostly
used in our campus. The spatial dimension of the supermarket is also within the
nominal range (30 meters) of the UWB equipment. The supermarket is in the
shape of a semicircle with a radius of about 20 meters, and it can be divided into
12 different function zones, each providing a certain kind of commodities as shown
in Figure 2 (1). We installed these anchors as Figure 2 (2) shows, making sure that
most of the supermarket can be covered by the triangle of three anchors. We added
an anchor at the northernmost point of the supermarket for a better localization near
the northernmost extension of the semicircle.

Figure 2. The plan of the supermarket.

2.2.2. Experiment Processing

Firstly, we count the number of students coming to the supermarket at different
time of a day, and set our research time from 18:00 to 22:00 during which time most
of the students come to buy things. Then we disputed tags to students randomly,
and asked them to go shopping with one tag to collect their movement data. At the
same time, we recorded the time they entered the supermarket and checkout in the
cashier. After they finished shopping, they were asked to fill in a questionnaire
about what they had intended to purchase and what they had actually purchased.
During our research, we received 108 questionnaires.

2.3. DATA PREPROCESSING

2.3.1. Data Cleaning
The raw data that we collected contain all the spatio-temporal data of our tags.
We left out those invalid data recorded by tags out of the experiment time
boundary. Also, limited by the number of our tags, each tag may record data of
several participants. According to the time we recorded of when each participant
started and finished shopping, we split the raw data and match them with each of
participants.
 THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERMARKET SPATIAL LAYOUT ON 305
SHOPPING BEHAVIOR AND PRODUCT SALES

2.3.2. Missing Data Filling

There may be some noise or missing values in our raw data, for reasons such as
the signals were reflected between the shelves or obscured by objects. Due to
signal lost at some time, our locating system records our data at an average of
one available data every 5 seconds (our tags send messages once per second).
Occasionally, the gap between two records can up to 15 seconds. Under this
circumstance, we need to fill the gap between those records, making our data closer
to the actual movement of participants.

Figure 3. The process of missing data filling.

Figure 3 shows the process of the data filling. The raw trajectory moving over
time was decomposed into two coordinates, x axis and y axis. As we can see
in the raw data from Figure 3, the data spread sporadically over time. We used
linear interpolation method to fill in the gaps between data, making our data evenly
distributed according to time, as is shown in the interpolated data. Some outliers
and abnormal fluctuations in data were smoothed using a five-points rolling mean
method in order to make the data as close to the participants’ actual movement as
possible, and the result is shown in the filled trajectory.

3. Result and analysis

The pre-processed data includes the location information of our tags, after being
cleaned and smoothed, these tag data could precisely display the movement of our
participants. Further data analysis is carried out on the basis of the data set and the
market plan.

3.1. QUESTIONNAIRE ON SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

As is shown in Figure 4, most participants visit supermarket 3 to 5 times a week.
The amount of planned shopping is remarkably high, marking the significance of
reasonably organize shopping routes. The gender difference is noticeable as to
unplanned shopping behavior, chosen by 28% of female participants, leading to
a higher possibility of impulse purchase. Shelf food is the most popular product
category of purchase, followed by frozen food (mostly dairy) and groceries.
306 L. YANG ET AL.

Figure 4. (1)Frequency of shopping; (2) Reason for shopping; (3) Category of purchase items.

3.2. TRAJECTORY OF SHOPPING BEHAVIOR

Clarification of the raw data lead to the smoothness of the trajectory. By tracking
the trajectory of the participants, we were able to organize the participants‘
behavioral trajectory map. Moreover, matching the trajectory map to the floor plan
of the supermarket provides an immediate feedback for our data filtering, and we
can see the abnormal conditions. Trajectory map can give us an intuitive graphical
interface about customers’ inclination while facing branching paths. Figure 4
shows a trajectory map of all participants superimposed, reflecting the general
pattern of customers walking in the supermarket.

Figure 5. Trajectory map of all participants superimposed .

After entering the market through the entrance besides the checkout cashier,
customers without specific shopping targets preferred to wander around the
shelves and went through the shelves when necessary. One type of customers
preferred to go through directly from entrance to west northern zones passing
through the clothing zone and curved counter in the middle. These customers
formed up the strongest flow. Another group preferred to go north from the
 THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERMARKET SPATIAL LAYOUT ON 307
SHOPPING BEHAVIOR AND PRODUCT SALES

entrance along the east most walkway to the snack area and frozen food area.
Other customers chose the path through the clothing zone, which accounts for the
smallest percentage of our total, indicating that the bottom left is not attractive to
most customers.
The trajectory pattern also shows in an intuitive way how participants move in
a certain zone. In the snack zone, the shelves divide the main flow into several
small streams. In the pancake area, because the pancake shop and the supermarket
are separated by windows, the customer cannot enter the store and can only wait
outside the window for the baker to finish cooking. That is the reason why all the
trajectories pass before the pancake area instead of entering it. The trajectories of
the participants in the frozen food area are staggered. Most customers would go
to frozen food zone at the end of shopping, so its location at the farthest end of the
checkout zone makes customers travel the longest and increase the likelihood of
impulsive consumption.

3.3. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISITS AND AVERAGE WALKING SPEED

Heat map of visits amount shows the usage frequency of different zone by mapping
the location information of each participant to the supermarket floor plan. Since
our device transmits data once a second, the visits amount of one point is the sum
of the amount of location data generated by participants at this point over a period
of time. In addition, by analyzing how fast they walk through each zone, we can
see what kind of role each zone plays in the market. Figure 5 shows the heat map of
visits by participants and the average walking speed in each space, which reflects
customers’ general preference of space.

Figure 6. (1) Heat map of visits; (2) Heat map of the average walking speed. .

In the heat map of Figure 6 (1), darker pixels represent more visits amount; in
Figure 6 (2), darker pixels means lower walking speed in this area. High visits
simply means more customers through this area, they may be picking goods or
just passing by, while low walking speed means that people are staying in this
area, they may be picking goods or waiting for checkout. We infer that spaces
with high visits amount will have a big overlap with spaces with low walking
speed. We can see that there is a clear relevance between the brighter parts of the
two heat maps. The north parts of the maps (clothing zone) are matched well. But
in checkout zone and stationary zone, the average walking speed is low while the
visits amount is also low. According to our experimental observation, we assume
308 L. YANG ET AL.

that in checkout zone, participants have to wait in queue for paying the bill, which
tremendously decrease the average walking speed. The stationary zone contains
some expensive souvenir and appliance, customers in need of these commodities
would take some time to compare and consider, which means even if there were
very few people enter the stationary zone, most of them would rather stay in one
place instead of walking around.

3.4. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VISITS AND SALES

During the experiment, we collected the participants’ purchase information, and
matched their purchase type to the corresponding zone. According to the purchase
amount, we plot the rough sale volume heat map, as a comparison of visits heat
map (Figure 7).

Figure 7. (1) Visits heat map; (2) Sales heat map.

Both heat maps are based on the investigation of the experiment participants.
The two heat maps are consistent in pancake and frozen food zones, however, in
shampoo and tissue zone, the visits heat map shows there are fewer visits in this
area compared to pancake zone, while its sale volume is a lot more than pancake
zone as shown in sales heat map.We conclude that the customers who go to the
shampoo or the tissue zone have a need for these necessities, they will quickly pick
the goods and will not stay there for a long time. In addition, the sales volume of
the stationary area does not match the heat of its visit, confirming our guess that
most customers are unlikely to purchase expensive goods even if they spend much
time browsing.

3.5. CONNECTION BETWEEN ZONES

Figure 8 (1) shows the strength of the connection between any two zones in the
supermarket, that is, the number of times people shuttle between the two zones. For
example, customers in frozen food zone went to snack zone 122 times while only
a few of them (15 times) went to beverage zone. This is probably because most
customers who purchase drinks from frozen zones (such as yogurt) are less likely
to buy other drinks in the beverage zone. In addition, students seem to bypass
the shampoo zone to buy snacks even though the shampoo zone lies between the
snacks zone and the entrance. Also, based on the information of what they bought,
we mapped the shortest path for his or her purchase (Figure 8 (2)). And after
superimposing all these paths, the connection between zones is shown. Strong
 THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERMARKET SPATIAL LAYOUT ON 309
SHOPPING BEHAVIOR AND PRODUCT SALES

connections are seen in Figure 8 (2) between entrance and shelf food, entrance and
frozen food, entrance and daily supplies, shelf food and frozen food in sequence.
Both maps show the strong connection between the snacks and the entrance, as
well as the powerful center of the snack zone, connecting the other seven areas.

Figure 8. (1) The visits connection between zones; (2) Sales connection between zones.

4. Conclusion
Our experiment has proved that Ultra-Wideband indoor positioning method is
effective for people’s behavioral data collection in a medium-scale public space.
At the same time, since it is a wearable device that actively transmits signals, it is
possible to clearly mark different participants and correspond to the information
collected from the questionnaire.
Relying on this method, we can get the streamlines and speeds customers walk
in this supermarket, and the length of time they stay in different areas of the
supermarket. Combined with the information of products they ultimately purchase,
we can compare their shopping behavior with the shopping results, and explore
the relationship between the supermarket space layout and people’s behavior, as
well as product sales. It is of great significance for optimizing the space layout of
the supermarket. For customers, it can also provide a better shopping experience,
reduce redundant streamlines, and improve shopping convenience.
This paper shows the acquisition and visualization of the collected shopping
behavior data, which is only a small part of our whole research. Based
on the phenomena we have obtained through analysis, we will construct
relevant mathematical models to evaluate and predict the spatial performance of
supermarkets.

Acknowledgements
This research project was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (NSFC) (No. 51578299). The UWB system was developed by the Institute
of Architectural Algorithms & Applications, School of Architecture, Southeast
University, Nanjing.
 310 L. YANG ET AL.

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