Heatmaps are important business intelligence tools for retailers. Today, various heatmap solutions exist in the market, each with unique and special features. Systems integrators, meanwhile, play a critical role in unlocking the full potential of heatmaps, making sure that the solution is properly installed and well aligned with the user’s needs and objectives.
Heatmaps are visual tools that enable retailers to identify which spots are hot and which ones are underperforming. The retailer can then merchandise and staff accordingly. To meet users’ increasingly complex demands, solutions providers are constantly innovating their offerings to deliver greater value.
Milesight, for example, leverages its in-house edge AI capabilities to develop its heatmapping solution, which is supported across key product lines, including the
360° Panoramic Fisheye Network Camera and the
AI TrueColor Q Series Camera (Dome/Bullet/Turret). The company already has various success stories with their solution.
“In a project with
Coo & Riku, Japan’s largest pet store chain, Milesight’s heatmapping supported layout optimization and staffing decisions, contributing to a 10 percent increase in sales in key areas, a 15 percent improvement in customer satisfaction, and ROI achieved within six months, while maintaining a stable and reliable system for daily operations,” said Angel Cai, Marketing Manager at Milesight.
SCATI, meanwhile, enables heatmapping through its SCATI EYE Intelligent Series, which brings advanced analytics to the edge. “Our retail heatmapping is positioned as a practical tool to help managers identify the most visited areas of a store and support decisions that improve store performance and resource allocation. What differentiates SCATI’s approach is that heatmaps are not presented as an isolated graphic, but as part of a broader model where video and analytics contribute to operational management and decision-making,” said Tamer Mohannad, Regional Sales Manager for Middle East and Africa at SCATI.
Koen de Jong, Founder and CEO of Visionplatform AI, spoke of their heatmap solution, which is part of a broader vision intelligence platform. “The company does not position heatmaps as standalone dashboards, but as one signal layer in a larger decision-making system within Milestone XProtect partnering with Conexao with their O'insights product,” he said. “Our solution stands out in that it works with existing security cameras fully on-premise; combines heatmapping with object detection, dwell analysis, and behavior context; outputs structured data that can trigger workflows, reports, or alerts; and is designed for both retail operations and security teams. Our customers use heatmapping not only to analyze stores, but to automate responses, such as staffing alerts or congestion warnings.”
Another company, V-Count has a heatmap solution that entails the use of their Nano Prime stereo image-based people counter sensor combined with their BoostBI analytics on Google Cloud. “This way the solution delivers high-fidelity heatmaps, visitor flows, and dwell vs. conversion data without recording or storing video, ensuring full GDPR compliance,” said Pritam Dey, Sales Manager for Middle East and APAC at V-Count.
Integral role played by systems integrators
Indeed heatmap solutions are widely available in the market. But it’s the systems integrator who holds the key to unlocking heatmaps’ true potential. Below we look at how integrators can help users get the most out of their heatmap solution.
The basics
First, the integrator needs to make sure all the basics are covered: The cameras are placed correctly; all areas needing to be monitored are covered; and all the technical infrastructure is there.
“Integrators deliver the greatest value when they approach heatmapping as a structured measurement project rather than a visual add-on. The first step is to design the deployment around the intended use case and ensure the technical foundations are correct: selecting cameras suitable for analytics, defining adequate top-down coverage, validating lighting and occlusions, and properly calibrating the measurement zones. Without the appropriate capture conditions, heatmaps may lead to inconsistent conclusions; with a correct design, they become a stable source of insight,” Mohannad said.
Define clear objectives
Helping the user define clear objectives is another critical job for the SI. What the user goals are and what they intend to achieve with the heatmap should be clearly outlined. As de Jong puts it, “The biggest failures happen when heatmaps are deployed without a clear operational use case.”
Mohannad echoes that remark. “Beyond deployment, the key is to … define which indicators will be monitored, who will review them, how frequently, and what actions will follow (layout adjustments, staffing reinforcement during peak periods, queue mitigation, or targeted supervision of sensitive areas). In SCATI environments, integrators can also unlock more value by ensuring heatmapping data is aligned with the broader analytics ecosystem and can be exploited through business intelligence workflows where applicable,” he said.
Data interpretation and integration
Integrators can also add value by supporting data interpretation. “They can help retailers translate the results into practical actions rather than treating them as static visuals. Over time, encouraging retailers to review the data regularly – especially before and after layout or operational changes – helps embed heatmapping into ongoing store optimization, rather than using it as a one-time analysis tool,” Cai said.
In order for this to work effectively, heatmaps must be well integrated with data from other systems. One example is a heatmap-POS (point of sale) integration, which gives retailers a clear picture on whether heavy foot traffic or dwell time is indeed converted into actual sales. Again, the SI has a big role to play in this regard.
“What SIs need to do is they need to categorize data in terms of sales and transactions, so as to help the user get an overall idea of if there are customers visiting a certain zone, those visits are being converted into real buy or not,” Dey said. “The main goal is to increase sales, right? So in order to do that, you have to get the data from the heat mapping sensors or the system and back it up with the sales data. So if the SI can help the user figure out what is the real picture … I think that's one way to unleash the heatmap’s full potential.”