Showing posts with label privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privacy. Show all posts

Friday 16 December 2011

My shop sees me….

                                                                                                       Jiro Bevis
Given e-tailers ability to track every mouse-move to help customise sites and maximise the likelihood of a purchase, it was only a matter of time before  bricks-and-mortar stores were able to give shoppers some much needed attention via computer analysis of their instore behaviour via security cameras, even saving surveyed consumers the bother of saying one thing and doing another….
Added to their ability to track mobile phone signals instore, retailers can now use direct feed from a store’s existing security camera system, run it through software which analyses the video and correlates it with sales data. The software can also integrate data from hardware such as RFID chips and motion sensors to track how often a brand of cereal is picked up or how many customers turn left when they enter a store…
Early days, but initial research already appears to indicate that many shoppers pay more attention to centre aisle than end-of-gondola displays..
Some are testing facial-recognition software that can identify shoppers’ gender and approximate age, whilst others are using mobile phone-number analysis to check shopper nationality.  Opportunity for ultra-sensitive in-pocket scanning of credit-cards to tie the data-set together?
Apart from the need to reconfigure store layout, assortment and displays to optimise the insight and pre-empt privacy issues, all that remains is for stores to analyse staff behaviour and try to get them to echo even a small proportion of the attention their technology is giving the shopper…  
Have a cautionary weekend, from the Namnews Team!