The benefits of using an Indoor Positioning System for navigating through a large building are clear. A user can use an Indoor Positioning System just like a GPS, being guided to specific destinations they’ve entered. What are some benefits that go beyond this? We’ll use the example of a mall to demonstrate, but an Indoor Positioning System can serve many of the same functions in any large facility, including airports, hospitals, stadiums, and warehouses.

Waypoint Navigation: This goes a step beyond simple point-to-point navigation. By creating via points or multi-step directions in the IPS app, a user can list a number of stores they’d like to visit. They can order them and tell the app when to start directions to the next, or the app can organize the best route through the mall for the user. Combine this with the next point, and you can also help a customer find other stores along the route they might be interested in:

Additional Marketing: Do particular customers using the app frequent certain kinds of stores? Do they linger outside some without going in? You can dive into this information to help target ads toward certain app users. Of course, this would be a nightmare to do on your own. Apps can do the legwork of utilizing and implementing this information for you. You can control broader settings such as how hard and how frequently ads are targeted to categories of users.

Finding Your Friends: One of the most useful elements of an Indoor Positioning System app is being able to set a friends list and easily find friends. Make sure to allow users to opt in to this kind of information. For various reasons, users might like to keep their specific location private from other users. It would be upsetting for these users to have their information shared without permission. Instead, stress the social aspect of using the app this way and allow users to opt in so that they can quickly locate other friends who have opted in. Allowing users to choose this also helps them feel more open to other aspects of the app, rather than feeling like tools like this are pushed onto them.

Deep Analytics: You can analyze traffic to better identify busy zones and foot traffic patterns. Are customers lingering around a specific unused area? Perhaps it needs more ad coverage. Does a certain location get more foot traffic than you anticipated? Those rents might be too low. Is there congestion at a particular area? Indoor Positioning System can help people find an alternate path at congested times of day that won’t frustrate or bog them down as much.