Security is an important element in retail and can be taken care of by security solutions such as video surveillance. But video surveillance can also help retailers address various non-security challenges. This article looks at how.
Security is an important element in
retail and can be taken care of by security solutions such as
video surveillance. But video surveillance can also help retailers address various non-security challenges. This article takes a closer at ways video surveillance can help retailers beyond security.
Non-security challenges facing retailers
Retail stores face a variety of non-security challenges that can impact their operations and overall success. These include: strong competition from e-commerce, where brick-and-mortar stores constantly feel the competitive pressures from their online counterparts; the need to improve the customer experience, which is essential for retaining customers and building brand loyalty; and inventory management, where retailers may find balancing inventory levels to meet demand without over- or understocking to be quite challenging.
Video can play a critical role
To address the aforementioned challenges, video surveillance solutions consisted of cameras and video analytics can play a key role. “Retailers store petabytes of data every year across their enterprise that can yield valuable insights to a lot of the stakeholders,” said Grant Cowan, VP of Strategic Accounts at Salient Systems. “Just like a football coach will go back in and review the game tape to better understand how his team performed, retailers can use their store video as ‘game tape’ to better understand customer behavior and shopping patterns to improve the bottom line.”
“Video analytics solutions that offer another layer of valuable customer and employee behavior data can unlock valuable, real-time insights. Examples include the number of people who come into retail stores, what they do while there, which products they are engaged with the most, and how the store design or floor plan is working,” said Steve Womer, SVP of Engineering at Interface Systems. “All of this data will reveal insights that can help retailers optimize store layout, make critical decisions on merchandising, correlate customer footfall to online campaigns, identify staffing bottlenecks, test new store designs, or compare the effectiveness of in-store campaigns.”
Below we take a closer look at the operational and managerial benefits that retailers can derive from their video surveillance systems.
Footfall analysis
Footfall or the number of people visiting a store has become a critical metric for retailers. Now they can rely on people counters to gain footfall data and conduct retail footfall analysis. Among the
various people counting solutions available, video-based 3D counters use the stereoscopic technology to get more detailed depth data, thus making people counting more accurate. And the insights provided can benefit retailers in various ways.
“People counting and occupancy monitoring using video analytics is not only more accurate and efficient than traditional methods, with the latest reporting and auditing tools it allows sales performance to be measured more easily against footfall. This is a vital comparison that can unlock previously hidden insights,” said Jamie Barnfield, Senior Sales Director at IDIS.
He added: “For example, it is now possible to quickly measure like-with-like, showing where branch managers and staff are performing best, not just those benefiting from higher footfalls; supporting better decision making when it comes to opening and closing stores; and allowing more accurate testing of new store configurations and product offerings.
Queue monitoring and management
Needless to say, standing in a long line to be served by but one clerk at the register is an unpleasant experience. Retailers can now use video analytics to detect queue lengths and deploy staff accordingly. “Retailers need actionable intelligence about their operations to improve customer experience and validate marketing and sales campaigns. Alerting staff when queues at cash registers are too long is a perfect example of providing better customer experiences. The latest AI on-site learning analytic from i-PRO allow retailers to train cameras to recognize unique objects they wish to track or count,” said Rui Barbosa, Category Manager for Surveillance Products at i-PRO.
Store layout optimization
Video surveillance provides insights on customers and their behavior at the store. Retailers can then use this data to optimize their store layout to drive sales and provide a better shopping experience.
“Video analytics is delivering value to retailers beyond security. It is being used to help … retailers lay out their shop floors by showing them how shoppers navigate their stores, revealing where they stop and linger, providing guidance for the optimum display of merchandise,” said Martin McGrath, Sales Manager for UK and Ireland at Milestone Systems.
“By analyzing video data, retailers can determine which products attract the most attention and assess the effectiveness of product placement in driving sales. This information allows retailers to make data-driven decisions that improve customer engagement, streamline operations, and ultimately enhance the shopping experience,” said Scott Thomas, National Director for Signature Brands at Genetec.
Inventory management enhancement
Video surveillance integrated with other retail systems can also help with inventory management. “We’re seeing an increased demand for analytics to be integrated with point of sale (POS) systems and wider ERP system so retail chains can better measure sales performance and ensure stores have the right levels of inventory and types of merchandise they need to convert browsing into purchasing based on weekly, monthly or seasonal trends, which is especially relevant to consumer purchases of ‘athleisure wear’ and beauty products,” Barnfield said.
Giving staff a morale boost
According to Barnfield, it’s also worth remembering the positive impact of video analytics and data-driven decision making on staff morale and retention, especially when stores use at-a-glance analytics dashboards giving them real-time insight as well as historical reports. “Businesses that make better decisions tend to support, motivate and train their people better, and make sure key employees feel empowered and rewarded when they are part of their store’s success,” he said.