Avoiding the Crowds: This App Tells You How Busy a Shopping Centre is in South Africa
South Africa has moved to level 3 of the nationwide lockdown and most retail stores are allowed to begin trading again. But, even with this exciting news, many consumers are still weary of heading to busy shopping centres and malls. Luckily for those who would rather avoid the crowds for now, a new app is helping shoppers in their social distancing efforts. Providing South African consumers with up-to-date information on vehicle attendance at shopping destinations they choose visit, the ShopSafe app goes a long way to helping shoppers minimise Covid-19-related risks.
Developed by data analytics company Lightstone and Tracker, the website application is mobile friendly and uses geolocation to identify your closest shopping centres. The app then provides a comprehensive analysis on the number of visits each hour of a 7 day week, to help you figure out the least busy time to shop at that shopping mall. The data pulled is updated weekly to keep shoppers informed about changing social habits in their area.
The app uses Tracker’s anonymously aggregated data and includes information on around 1,300 shopping centres across South Africa. This data is used to extrapolate key information such as how many people are currently in the shopping centre and expected queuing times at larger retailers in the shopping centre, such as grocery stores.
To use the app you simply visit the Lightstone website here. Then you can choose to either allow the app to determine your location, input your latitude and longitude into the relevant fields, or choose the shopping centre that you’re interested in, from the drop-down list. Take a look at the data offered about your closest shopping centre and plan your weekly shopping trip accordingly.
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