Survey Conducted by Harris Interactive Reveals 93 Percent of Americans Dread Crowd-Related Inconveniences While Holiday Shopping

SAN FRANCISCO,CA and SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 31, 2013) - Today the results of a survey conducted by Harris Interactive around consumer sentiment -- co-sponsored by Aerohive Networks®, a leader in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-managed mobile networking for the enterprise market and Euclid, a leader in brick-and-mortar analytics solutions for retailers -- reveal that 88 percent of holiday shoppers plan on visiting physical stores this holiday season, despite 93 percent of shoppers fostering crowd-related concerns.

Despite recent sales projections from firms like ShopperTrack stating store visits are expected to fall 1.4 percent during the holiday season, the vast majority of shoppers still plan to visit physical stores. According to the Harris survey, here's how Americans plan to shop this holiday season:

• 88 percent of consumers will shop in physical stores
• 75 percent of consumers will shop online via computer
• 16 percent of consumers will shop via mobile devices

"The fact that 88 percent of shoppers still plan on doing their shopping at brick and mortar stores, despite having serious concerns about the experience, demonstrates how instrumental physical retailers are to commerce in general," said Scott Frymoyer, head of Euclid's Data Insights team. "However, physical retailers need to confront consumer concerns not only to improve the shopping experience for consumers, but also to improve profitability and encourage loyalty."

The Harris survey identified three major concerns of consumers coming into the holiday season:

• Crowds -- 42 percent
• Lines -- 29 percent
• Items would be out of stock -- 15 percent

"Online shopping will never replace the tactile feel of an in-store shopping experience. Until recently, the online retailer held a distinct data advantage over the brick and mortar world," added Frymoyer. "Together with Aerohive, we want to provide physical retailers with the same data that their online counterparts use, while improving the benefits of being in a store. Our goal is to offer a better shopping experience to consumers and increase profitability in retailers."

By seamlessly coupling in-store Aerohive Wi-Fi access point products with Euclid retail analytics, retailers are now able to address customers' top concerns identified in the Harris survey.

• Crowds: Using retail analytics to show where shoppers spend the most time, and where additional store staff might be able to assist consumers making purchase decisions, store operations teams are able to understand shopper trends and behaviors and change store floor sets to have a better flow and shopper distribution so interior space is maximized.
  
  
• Lines: With staffing offices connected with Wi-Fi, retailers can use analytics around store shop time to help ensure that they have the proper amount of checkout positions open to streamline checkout stations and cut down on lines.
  
  
• Items out of stock: In-store Wi-Fi connects stores to their distribution centers and warehouses to better manage inventory levels, minimize mistakes and help ensure stores stay well stocked with items in high demand.
  
  

"Retailers have been aggressively working to find incentives to keep consumers in stores and off Internet shopping sites, which is even more important during the holiday season, kicking off with Black Friday," said David Greene, SVP product strategy for Aerohive Networks. "With technologies such as Aerohive Wi-Fi solutions and Euclid's sensory technology, brick-and-mortar retailers now have the power to attract consumers more effectively and efficiently."

To view the report, please visit: http://blog.euclidelements.com/2013/10/aerohive-and-euclid-arm-stores-with.html

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Aerohive and Euclid from September 4-6, 2013 among 2,022 adults ages 18 and older; of whom 1,801 identified themselves as holiday shoppers. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

About Aerohive Networks
 Aerohive was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company's investors include Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lightspeed Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) and Northern Light Venture Capital. For more information, please visit www.aerohive.com, call us at 408-510-6100, follow us on Twitter @Aerohive, subscribe to our blog, join our community or become a fan on our Facebook page.

About Euclid
Euclid provides answers and insights to brick-and-mortar retailers in the same way that web analytics services do for e-commerce. Euclid helps retailers optimize performance of their marketing, merchandising, and operations by measuring foot-traffic, store visits, walk-by conversion, bounce rate, visit duration, and customer loyalty. Euclid collects and analyzes only aggregated, anonymous data. As of October 2013, Euclid's network consists of traffic counting sensors in more than 600 shopping centers, malls and street locations around the United States. During September, the network measured 20 million shopping sessions across the United States. Visit http://euclidanalytics.com/ for more information.