Why Airports Struggle with Benchmarking Retail Performance

Every airport commercial director has faced this puzzle:
Two similar stores, same brand, same passenger flow — but one outperforms the other by 30%.

Why?
The answer is rarely obvious, because airports often lack the tools and data consistency to truly compare performance.

In fact, when it comes to airport retail benchmarking, most teams still rely on outdated spreadsheets, incomplete reports, and siloed data sources. The result? Decisions made on instinct instead of insight — and lost opportunities to optimize revenue.

As airport retail becomes a bigger share of non-aero revenue, the ability to benchmark performance isn’t just “nice to have.” It’s a strategic necessity.

If you asked ten concessionaires in the same airport for a sales report, you’d likely get ten different formats. That’s the core challenge — lack of standardized metrics.

Each brand or retailer measures success differently. Some report gross sales, others net. Some include discounts, some don’t. Categories vary, reporting timelines differ, and KPIs are defined inconsistently.
Here’s what typically goes wrong:

• Siloed PoS Systems
  Every concessionaire operates its own point-of-sale system, producing reports that don’t align with others. Without a unified POS data capture solution, airports have no consolidated view.
• Manual and Delayed
  Reporting
 Data comes in weekly or monthly, often in Excel or PDF format. By the time the airport aggregates and analyzes it, the insights are stale.
• Inconsistent KPIs
  Metrics like sales per passenger, revenue per square meter, or average transaction value are calculated differently by each retailer — making comparisons unreliable.
• Limited Cross-Terminal View
  Airports often can’t compare performance across terminals or outlets. What works in Terminal 1 might fail in Terminal 2, but the data doesn’t tell them why.
• No Peer Benchmarking
  Even at the industry level, most airports lack a framework to compare themselves with others. Without airport data analytics tools that normalize data, there’s no clear way to see how one airport’s retail ecosystem stacks up against another.

For airports competing in today’s experience-driven travel economy, retail isn’t just about collecting rent — it’s about driving performance.

Benchmarking fuels smarter decision-making:

• Pricing & rent strategy: Determine fair, data-backed revenue share agreements.
• Category optimization: Identify which product groups deliver the best sales per pax.
• Performance accountability: See which brands are truly pulling their weight.
• Experience design: Understand how passenger flow and store location affect conversion.

Without consistent point of sale analytics, airports can’t accurately measure success or identify opportunities. It’s like flying blind through turbulence — hoping for smooth skies but lacking the instruments to know.

Let’s take an example.

An airport commercial team notices that luxury fashion sales in Terminal A are down 15% year-on-year, while food and beverage in Terminal B is up 20%.

At first glance, it looks like a performance issue — but without standardized data, that conclusion could be wrong. Maybe the passenger mix changed. Maybe Terminal A had fewer international travelers. Maybe retailers reported discounts differently.

Without real-time POS data analytics and standardized metrics, it’s impossible to know the truth — and impossible to act with confidence.

This lack of clarity leads to:

• Misaligned contract negotiations
• Unfair comparisons between retailers
• Missed opportunities for targeted retail digital campaigns
• Inefficient airport revenue management

The takeaway is simple: You can’t improve what you can’t measure — and you can’t measure what you can’t compare.

Airports that are getting benchmarking right share a common foundation: data standardization and real-time visibility.

Here’s what that future-ready model looks like:

1. Unified Data Source
A single platform that consolidates data from all concessionaires’ PoS systems — regardless of vendor or format.

2. Real-Time Sales Tracking
No waiting for weekly reports. Real-time sales data capture allows airports to monitor performance as it happens, with alerts for anomalies or opportunities.

3. Consistent KPIs
Metrics like sales per pax, sales per sqm, and average transaction value are calculated uniformly across all stores and terminals.

4. Competitive Context
Benchmarking doesn’t stop at your airport. Airports can compare categories and pricing trends against similar airports regionally or globally.

5. Visual Insights
Airport business intelligence tools present the data in clear dashboards — accessible to finance, commercial, and marketing teams alike.

When these elements come together, airports move from guessing to knowing, and from reacting to optimizing.

StoreSense for Airports was designed to solve exactly this challenge. It’s not just another analytics tool — it’s a purpose-built retail business intelligence solution that turns fragmented retail data into a unified, actionable intelligence layer.

Here’s how StoreSense makes benchmarking seamless:

🔹 Real-Time POS Data Capture
StoreSense connects directly to concessionaire PoS systems via secure, plug-and-play devices. Every transaction — from duty-free perfumes to quick-serve meals — is captured in real time. That means airports have instant visibility into sales activity across all outlets.

🔹 Standardized Data Across Retailers
By automatically cleaning, validating, and structuring incoming sales data, StoreSense ensures all metrics are standardized. This removes ambiguity and gives airports a single source of truth for performance analysis.

🔹 Competition Benchmarking Module
This feature enables apples-to-apples comparisons across retailers, terminals, and even airports. Airports can compare:

• Sales per passenger (to assess efficiency)
• Revenue per square meter (to evaluate store utilization)
• Category performance (to balance tenant mix)
• Pricing trends (to identify competitiveness)
• It’s benchmarking made simple — and powerful.

🔹 Actionable Analytics for Every Team
StoreSense’s POS analytics software provides customized dashboards for finance, commercial, and marketing leaders. Finance gets revenue assurance; commercial sees category trends; marketing can link campaigns to actual sales outcomes.

🔹 Data-Driven Growth
With airport data analytics feeding into strategy, airports can optimize contracts, run targeted up sell / cross sell campaigns, and design more effective airport retail campaign management programs.

When StoreSense is in place, benchmarking transforms from a headache into a competitive advantage:

• For Airports:
  Gain transparency, eliminate revenue disputes, and make confident lease and pricing decisions.
• For Retailers:
  See fair, data-backed comparisons that reflect performance accurately, not subjectively.
• For Passengers:
  Enjoy better retail experiences, curated product mixes, and smarter promotions driven by insight.

In short, everyone wins when data becomes standardized, accessible, and real time.

1. Why do airports struggle to benchmark retail performance?
Because most rely on fragmented PoS systems, inconsistent reporting formats, and manual consolidation. Without standardized POS data capture, meaningful comparisons are nearly impossible.

2. How does StoreSense fix this problem?
StoreSense integrates directly with all concessionaires’ PoS systems, capturing real-time sales data and automatically standardizing it for easy analysis and benchmarking.

3. What metrics can StoreSense benchmark?
Sales per passenger, revenue per sqm, category and brand performance, and even pricing trends across retailers or terminals.

4. Does it work across multiple airports?
Yes — airports using StoreSense can benchmark their performance not just internally, but also against peer airports globally through its competition benchmarking module.

5. How fast can airports see results?
Implementation is plug-and-play, meaning airports can start seeing clean, comparable data in weeks — not months.