How Kawai UK Optimised Retail Performance Using Huq’s Footfall Data Solutions
Case Study
Client Overview
Kawai UK, the British arm of the renowned Japanese musical instrument manufacturer, has built a reputation for crafting world-class acoustic and digital pianos. Their product portfolio caters to a diverse range of customers, from professional musicians to hobbyists. However, despite their heritage and market presence, Kawai UK faced a critical business challenge: optimising their retail strategy in a highly competitive environment.
How to optimise their retail strategy in a highly competitive environment.

“Understanding local market trends and visitor behaviour was crucial for optimising our retail locations. We needed data-driven insights to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.”
The Challenge
The focus of this challenge lay in a key location famous for its vibrant music retail scene. While its cultural significance made it an obvious choice, Kawai UK had limited visibility into footfall trends, visitor demographics, and overall retail performance within the area. Without access to such data, it was difficult to:
Asses Store Performance
Assess the effectiveness of their retail location.
Cross-location Analysis
Understand how visitor trends evolved over time, and identify high-traffic zones.
Area Benchmarking
Benchmark Kawai's performance against historical and regional trends.
Huq's Solution
We’ve moved from making assumptions to making informed, data-backed decisions that directly impact our strategy. This level of clarity and precision has transformed the way we approach retail optimisation.
The primary objective was to leverage data-driven insights to refine their retail strategies, ensuring they could maximise their market presence and effectively engage with their target audience.
Recognising the need for a deeper understanding of footfall and consumer behaviour, the retailer turned to Huq Industries for a solution. They hoped Huq could provide:
Accurate Footfall Data
Accurate footfall data to track changes over time and pinpoint high-traffic areas.
Visitor Demographics
Insights into visitor demographics to better align their offerings with the local audience.
Decision-making Proccess
A mechanism to support future decision-making, including potential expansion to similar locations in the UK.
How Huq's Solution Helped
Huq delivered a tailored data solution to meet Kawai’s specific requirements. This included:
Core Monthly Reports
These reports provided a detailed breakdown of footfall trends, including year-on-year comparisons and density maps showing high-traffic areas.
Visitor Demographics
Insights into visitor profiles, such as age distribution, were included to help Kawai align their retail strategies with the preferences of their audience.
Historical Analysis
Reports incorporated three years of historical data, enabling Kawai to track long-term trends and identify shifts in visitor behaviours.
Final comments
Kawai UK’s collaboration with Huq Industries exemplifies the power of data-driven decision-making in retail. By addressing their core challenges with actionable insights, Kawai has been able to enhance their retail performance and position themselves for continued success. With plans to explore similar opportunities in other UK locations, their partnership with Huq is set to play a pivotal role in shaping their future growth strategy.
If your business is looking to gain a competitive edge and make smarter location-based decisions, Huq’s location intelligence solutions provide the clarity and confidence needed to succeed in a fast-moving market.
“Huq’s data has been a game-changer for us. The insights into footfall and visitor behaviour have given us the clarity we needed to optimise our retail strategy. We can now make informed decisions with confidence, and the level of customisation and support provided by Huq has been exceptional.”
Tom Haydney
Marketing & Product Manager UK
Is your business facing similar challenges?
Our experienced team can demonstrate how to use location intelligence and analytics to augment a wide range of use cases, including:
- Identifying locations for new stores
- Optimising your existing store portfolio
- Informing your pricing strategy
- Improving the effectiveness of marketing
- Benchmarking performance across locations
- Understanding competitor landscape
- Optimising opening hours