Heatmaps

This is a heatmap based on wifi signal strength.. "the tool allocates a 2D grid that overlaps the geographical sample area, working out the average signal strength based on nearby sample points."

the beauty about heat maps is that they hold a lot of information in a single frame. Hemang's been creating a heat map for mapping shopper movement, dwell times etc. for retail stores. instead of going through heaps of analytical data in the form of excel sheets, a heat map is a simple visual tool which can be used across a retail organization - right from category managers to operations, marketing and even store employees to understand the impact of store layout and merchandising.

of course, when one starts co-relating the hot and cold zones in a store with the shopper demographics (through a loyalty card) and their buying preferences (through purchase history databases) the heat map can turn into a retail gold mine..