Assessing Foot Traffic at a Site Before Placing a Machine

Headcount is not everything. What counts is how long people stay and whether they have other options.

The building manager says, "Hundreds of people come through here every day." That sounds great, until it turns out those hundreds of people cross the lobby in two minutes on their way to the elevator, holding a coffee from the café on the ground floor. Traffic isn't just a head count. It's also how long people stay, what they're missing, and whether they have any reason to stop at a machine at all. This article shows how to assess a site before a machine goes in: what to observe, who to ask, how to record your findings, and which mistakes to avoid. It won't give you a universal "break-even" number, because there isn't one. It will help you gather the information an operator and a building manager need to make a sensible decision.

The Head Count Is Only the Start

The simplest question is how many people are in the building. In an office, it's the number of employees. In a school, it's students and teachers. In a production hall, it's the people on each shift. That number is useful, but it's easy to overrate. In a hybrid office, half the desks may sit empty on Mondays and Fridays. In a sports hall, the crowd shows up in the evening and on weekends, and it's empty at noon. So instead of one number, ask about the spread: how many people are in the building on a typical day, on the quietest day, and on the busiest. The gap between those figures tells you more than the average. It also helps to separate people who are in the building every day from visitors who come once.

Time on Site Matters More Than It Seems

Someone who spends eight hours in a building will sooner or later get hungry or want a coffee. Someone crossing a lobby on the way to a platform will buy something only if they happen to need it and have a moment. That's why places where people stay longer are usually better for a machine than places with heavy but fast-moving traffic. Office staff, patients in a waiting room, students between classes, warehouse workers on a shift: these groups have both the time and a reason to use a machine. When you assess a site, write down not just "how many people" but also "how long they stay" and "whether they get breaks."

Opening Hours and the Rhythm of the Day

A machine runs around the clock, but the building doesn't always. An office open from eight to six has a different rhythm than a hospital, a multi-shift plant, or a dorm. Ask the building manager about opening hours, shifts, lunch breaks, and days when the building is closed. At a school, summer vacation and winter break mean weeks with no sales. In an office tower, the holiday season is often noticeably quieter. It's also worth checking whether people working evenings and nights can reach the spot where the machine will stand. Sometimes the best location in the building gets locked after six, and the night shift still goes without coffee.

Traffic Over the Year

A site that looks great in October may be empty in July. Universities and schools have summer vacation, exam periods, and semester breaks. Office buildings have vacation season, and some companies close between Christmas and New Year's. Sports and leisure venues have their own seasons: an indoor pool is full in winter, an outdoor one in summer. So when you assess a site, ask not only about a typical week but about a typical year. Which months are the quietest? Is the building ever closed for longer stretches? Are there events that draw extra people, such as trade fairs, exams, or open days? The answers help set realistic expectations and plan a product range that won't expire during the slow weeks.

What's Nearby

The other side of the assessment is competition. A grocery store across the street, a cafeteria on the ground floor, a café in the lobby, a staff canteen, or another machine one floor up: all of these affect whether people will use a new machine. That doesn't mean a machine makes no sense near a store. It just plays a different role. It can be open when the store is closed, offer a quick purchase without leaving the building, or fill in for the canteen outside serving hours. Write down what's nearby, when it's open, and how long it takes to get there. Five minutes each way is a lot for someone with a short break.

Watching the Site in Person

Talking to the building manager is one thing. Seeing it yourself is another. If you can, spend an hour or two at the planned spot at different times of day: in the morning, at lunchtime, and in the afternoon. See where people walk, where they stop, where they wait for the elevator, and where they sit during breaks. Notice whether people bring food from outside, whether the kitchen has a kettle and staff's own supplies, and whether the trash cans are full of snack wrappers. These simple signals show what people need. If you can, count the people passing the planned spot for fifteen minutes at each of those times. It isn't a scientific study, but it gives you a better reference point than a general impression. Write your observations down right away. After three visits to different buildings, the details start to blur.

Questions for the Building Manager and Users

A few questions worth asking when you discuss a site:

• How many people are in the building on a typical day, and how does that change over the week?
• What are the opening hours, and are there night shifts?
• Where do people take their breaks, and is there a break room?
• What's available in the building and nearby: a store, a cafeteria, a canteen, another machine?
• Has there been a machine here before, and why did it go?
• What does the building manager think people are missing?

It also helps to ask a few users, for example the receptionist or employees who use the kitchen every day. Their answers are often more specific than the building manager's general view. The last two questions on the list are often the most revealing. If the previous machine disappeared after a few months, it's worth knowing why before putting the next one in the same spot.

The Type of Place and Its Users

The same traffic in two different places means different needs. In an office, people look for coffee and small snacks during the day. In a production hall, a quick meal and a drink in a short break matter. In a hospital waiting room, visitors want water and something to eat, and staff want coffee at any hour. Schools have separate rules on food for children and teenagers, and the product range has to reflect them. So the profile of the users affects not only whether a machine makes sense, but also which machine and what range. A site assessment shouldn't end with just "yes" or "no." It should end with an initial idea for the product range.

A Good Spot in the Building, Not Just a Good Building

Even the best building has better and worse spots for a machine. What counts is visibility from the main route, closeness to where people take breaks, and whether someone can stand at the machine for a moment without blocking the walkway. Then there are the technical conditions: a grounded outlet, network coverage, a hard and level floor, and distance from heat and moisture. A spot at the dark end of a hallway that nobody visits will lose to a spot by the break room, even if the first one is closer to the entrance. So assess traffic for two or three specific spots in the building, not for the building as a whole. Mark on the floor plan exactly where the machine could stand and how people from different parts of the building would reach it.

Example: Two Floors of the Same Office Building

An office building offers two floors to choose from. On the first, forty people from one company work. On the second, there are two smaller companies of fifteen people each, plus a coworking reception desk with visitor traffic. At first glance, the second floor seems better, because more people come through. Observation shows, though, that coworking visitors usually stay for short meetings and get coffee in the meeting room. The first-floor staff spend the whole day in the office, and the nearest store is a few minutes' walk from the building. The first floor turns out to be the better choice, even with fewer people. That's a typical case: potential depends on the combination of head count, time on site, and lack of alternatives, not on the number of people walking in.

Common Mistakes When Assessing Traffic

A few mistakes come up often:

• counting everyone who enters the building instead of the people who actually pass the machine,
• judging from a single day, for example midweek, without checking Mondays and Fridays,
• ignoring seasonality, vacations, and holidays,
• overlooking competition inside the building, such as a lobby café,
• choosing a spot that's visible but locked in the evening,
• talking only to the building manager and never to users.

Most of these can be avoided if the assessment takes a few days instead of one visit, and if the findings are written down.

How to Record Your Findings

The simplest format is a short site card. Write down the address and the exact spot, the number of people on a typical day and the quietest day, the building's hours, how long users stay, nearby competition, technical conditions such as power and network coverage, and your observations. At the end, add an initial assessment and an idea for the product range. A card like this pays off twice: when you decide whether to place the machine, and later, when after a few months you compare actual sales with your assumptions. Without written assumptions, it's hard to tell whether the site failed or whether expectations were simply too optimistic.

After Installation: Check Your Assumptions

An assessment before installation is a forecast, and forecasts get checked. After the first few weeks, compare sales with what you expected. If they're clearly lower, go back to the site card and see which assumption didn't hold. Maybe people take a different route than it seemed. Maybe the night shift can't reach the machine. Maybe the lobby café started a promotion. Sometimes moving the machine a few feet or changing the product range is enough. Sometimes you have to admit honestly that the spot isn't working. That kind of review is only easy if the assumptions were written down before the start.

Locations

The page on machine locations (publisher's site) describes typical places where machines stand.

FAQ

How many people need to be in a building for a machine to make sense? There's no single universal number. What counts is the combination of head count, time on site, and what else is available nearby.

Is one visit enough to assess a site? Usually not. It's worth seeing the spot at different times of day and on different days of the week.

Does a store nearby rule out a machine? No. It changes the machine's role, for example to after-hours access or a quick purchase without leaving the building.

Who should assess the site? Ideally the operator together with the building manager, taking users' views into account.