Your center draws the crowd. Now get to know them.
Turn the free WiFi in your center into a consented shopper database, a channel for events and tenant offers, and research you can act on. One platform for center marketing and center management, run on the access points you already own.
- 80% opt-in rate at Highcross Leicester
- Plugs into dotdigital, Mailchimp and Placewise
- CCPA/CPRA consent with a full audit trail
- Runs on your existing access points

Thousands of shoppers every week, and almost none of them known to the center
St James Quarter expects 270,000 visitors a week. Your tenants know their own shoppers through their registers and apps, but the center that draws the crowd usually knows only a handful of them. That gap shows up in four places.
A typical shopping center today
- Free WiFi behind a click-through page that collects nothing
- A shopper database that leaves with a previous owner or managing agent
- Events, late-night openings and tenant offers promoted on posters and hoped for
- Signage, cameras and the center team's laptops sharing one password
With Purple
- A branded sign-in that asks for consent. Highcross Leicester now opts in 80% of shoppers.
- Every record lands in your own CRM through dotdigital, Mailchimp, Placewise or 400+ other connectors
- Event and offer pages scheduled on the sign-in screen, live on the dates you choose
- Center staff, devices and pop-up tenants each on their own key and VLAN
Four things your center's WiFi should be doing for you
Center marketing and center management usually buy these separately, if at all. Purple runs all four from one dashboard.
Build a shopper database
A branded sign-in with CCPA/CPRA consent, feeding opted-in shoppers to your CRM the moment they connect.
02 · Events and offersA campaign channel in every pocket
Scheduled pages for Christmas, events and tenant promotions, shown as shoppers sign in.
03 · Visitor insightAsk shoppers what they want
Micro surveys in the sign-in, and first-time and returning visitors told apart.
04 · Center networkStaff, devices and pop-ups
Single sign-on for the center team and a private key for every screen, camera and pop-up unit.
Turn free WiFi into a shopper database you can market to
Shoppers sign in with their email or a social account on a page in your center's brand, and choose whether to hear from you. St James Quarter asked for name, zip code and date of birth, added social login and fed every record to Placewise. In one July month, 16,743 sign-ins produced 6,362 new CRM records at a 38% opt-in rate.
- Unified Accounts lifted Highcross Leicester's opt-in rate from 56% to 80%
- Opted-in shoppers sent to dotdigital, Mailchimp, Placewise and 400+ other connectors
- Branded captive portal with CCPA/CPRA consent and a full audit trail behind every record
- DNS content filtering keeps the guest network family friendly
After Intu went into administration, Metrocentre and Midsummer Place rebuilt their CRM databases on Purple, collecting 9,998 and 6,741 marketable records in six months.
Explore guest WiFi
Shopper databasePut every event and tenant offer on the screen shoppers are already holding
The sign-in page is the first thing every connected shopper sees. Purple's Logic Flow schedules a different page by date and by center, so the marketing team can promote Christmas, half-term and late-night shopping without an IT ticket. City Center Bishop Ranch scheduled pages for three events and earned 2,675 views.
- Turnberry ran a five-second video for Santa's Arrival and Tree Lighting, with more than 11,400 impressions
- Battersea Power Station saw 1% of WiFi visitors book tickets for its outdoor cinema and theater
- Tenant offers on the sign-in page brought a 20% sign-in rate at Beyond
- City Mall sent a Bershka offer by SMS to 580 shoppers, and 10% spent enough to claim it
Events and offersAsk the people in your center what they want next
Micro surveys sit inside the sign-in, so you hear from thousands of shoppers without a clipboard team on the mall. Madison International Realty ran three surveys across Queens Place, Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls and collected 17,507 responses in six months.
- Liverpool ONE asked about Christmas trading hours, and 59% wanted stores to open at 9am
- Rosemary Square learned that 89% of its visitors did not yet have its rewards app
- First-time and returning visitors see different pages, as they do at Hudson Yards
- Survey answers sit beside sign-up data and flow to your CRM with the shopper's consent
Unicomer asked shoppers at two of its malls whether a free photo and video area would bring them back more often. 76% said yes, and the marketing team built one.
Explore first-party data
Visitor insightOne secure network for the center team, its devices and its pop-ups
Behind the public WiFi sits everything that keeps a center running: the management suite, security and cleaning teams, digital screens, cameras, door controllers and sensors. Purple puts each on the right network with no shared password, managed from the same platform as your guest WiFi.
- Center staff sign in with Microsoft Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace, and leavers lose access when their account is disabled
- xPSK gives screens, cameras, sensors and door controllers their own key and VLAN
- Time-limited keys for contractors and pop-up tenants, each with its own firewall and bandwidth rules
- Works under your vendor's name: iPSK on Cisco, DPSK on Ruckus, MPSK on HPE Aruba and Juniper Mist, PPSK on Extreme and UniFi
Center networkWhat basic center WiFi gives you, and what Purple gives you
The same access points, the same shoppers. The difference is what happens when they connect.

What center marketing teams have done with their WiFi
From opt-in rates to rebuilt databases and survey responses, these are results from shopping centers in the US running Purple today.
Figures from Purple customer results: Highcross Leicester, St James Quarter, Metrocentre and Madison International Realty.

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Live on the access points you already own
- 1
Connect your CRM
Link dotdigital, Mailchimp, Placewise or another of 400+ connectors, and choose the questions you want to ask at sign-in.
- 2
Point your access points at Purple
We configure the guest, staff and device networks on your existing hardware, with no on-premise RADIUS server to install.
- 3
Launch and promote
Go live with your branded sign-in, promote the WiFi around the center and schedule your first event page.
See your center's WiFi as a marketing channel
Tell us about your center or portfolio and we will show you how shopper sign-in, campaigns, surveys and the center network would work on your hardware.
- Works with Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba, Ruckus, Juniper Mist, Ubiquiti UniFi, Cambium, Extreme and Fortinet
- Connects to dotdigital, Mailchimp, Placewise, HubSpot, Braze and 400+ other platforms
- ISO 27001 certified, CCPA/CPRA compliant, zero data breaches since 2012
Book a shopping center demo
A 30-minute call with someone who knows shopping center marketing.
Shopping center WiFi questions, answered
What center marketing and management teams ask us most
Do we need to replace our access points?
No. Purple runs on the access points you already own, including Cisco Meraki, HPE Aruba, Ruckus, Juniper Mist, Ubiquiti UniFi, Cambium, Extreme and Fortinet. There is no on-premise server to install.
How do we get more shoppers to sign in and opt in?
Promote the WiFi around the center, keep the form short and offer social login. Highcross Leicester moved from a 56% to an 80% opt-in rate after switching to Unified Accounts, and Beyond reached a 20% sign-in rate by showing tenant offers on the sign-in page.
Can our tenants promote their own offers?
Yes. At Beyond, each store submitted its own offer, from a discount on a minimum spend to a free drink, and shoppers saw them as they signed in. You decide which offers run, where and when.
Which CRM and marketing platforms do you connect to?
Shopping centers on Purple send records to dotdigital, Mailchimp and Placewise, and 400+ connectors cover platforms such as HubSpot and Braze. Records go to your own CRM, so the database stays with the center if a managing agent changes.
Is the data we collect compliant with CCPA/CPRA?
Yes. Consent is captured at sign-in with a full audit trail behind every record. Purple is ISO 27001 certified, holds Cyber Essentials and has had zero data breaches since 2012.
Can we run surveys through the WiFi?
Yes. Micro surveys appear as part of the sign-in. Madison International Realty collected 17,507 responses across three malls in six months, and Liverpool ONE used one to test demand for earlier Christmas opening.
Can the same platform run our staff and device networks?
Yes. Center staff sign in with Microsoft Entra ID, Okta or Google Workspace, and xPSK gives every screen, camera, sensor and pop-up unit its own key and VLAN. Cloud RADIUS comes with a 99.9% uptime SLA.
Featured products for Shopping centers
The Purple platform pieces most Shopping centers venues deploy on day one.
Guest WiFi platform for Shopping centers
Captive Portals, analytics, and marketing automation as a cloud overlay.
Captive Portal software for Shopping centers
Modern Captive Portals with social login, SSO, and marketing consent.
Passwordless WiFi for Shopping centers
EAP-TLS, iPSK, and Passpoint - replace shared passwords with identity.
Recommended solution for Shopping centers
WiFi for marketing teams. First-party data capture, footfall analytics, and CRM-triggered automation built for venues that monetize visitor data.
See WiFi for marketing teams →Related pillar guides
The topical pillars most relevant to Shopping centers. Each guide is the canonical hub for that area of the platform.
Guest WiFi
The master guide to delivering guest WiFi: models, layers, compliance, and how to choose a provider.
WiFi marketing
Turn captive portal sign-ins into consented first-party data, activated through your CRM and ESP.
WiFi analytics
Presence and engagement analytics, footfall, dwell, and GDPR-defensible measurement.
Further reading for Shopping centers
Technical guides, articles and customer stories for teams running WiFi in this sector.
Guides for Shopping centers
- Family-Friendly WiFi: Best Practices for Shopping Malls
- Shopping Center WiFi: A Property Manager's Guide
- How Shopping Centers Use WiFi Analytics to Attract and Retain Retailers
- WiFi in Retail Stores: Building Customer Profiles From Footfall Data
- Retail WiFi: How In-Store WiFi Drives Sales, Loyalty and Footfall
- Staff WiFi Policies for Retail: Securing Back-of-House Networks
- Zoo and Theme Park WiFi: High-Footfall Venue Connectivity Guide
- How to Offer Retail Customers a Personalized Experience Using WiFi
Related industries
Other verticals running on the same Purple platform.
Speak to an expert
Tell us about your venues and we'll show you how Purple fits.