How children are counted
People counters generally count children as people, which means a child walking through the entrance adds to the footfall figure the same way an adult does. A basic door counter may record children or other group members among the entries it logs, alongside employees, deliveries, customers returning to the store, people using several entrances, pass-through traffic, and the same visitor more than once 1. Whether that behaviour is desirable depends on the technology, the store layout, and the counting rules applied 1.
Group size and family arrivals
The practical issue with children is group arrivals. Guidance on measuring try-on rate describes counting at every store entrance during open hours, ignoring staff movements, and adjusting for group size so that a family of four arriving together is read as four people rather than one 2. That adjustment matters because a counter that reads a tight group as a single crossing understates traffic, while one that counts each body records the children as separate visits.
Why the counting method changes the result
Different counting methods handle these situations differently. Manual counting has staff physically tally people entering and exiting with a clicker or pen and paper 3. Infrared or beam counters use infrared beams to detect and count individuals as they pass through an entrance 3.
Separating one group from another
Where a system needs to distinguish one category of person from another, the established example in the sources is staff exclusion, the ability of a people-counting system to detect and separate employees from customers so footfall data reflects genuine visitor traffic 4. Methods include using existing CCTV cameras with only anonymised counts retained, or staff wearing an RFID or Bluetooth tag detected by sensors 4.