Retailers use video surveillance beyond security

There is a myth that surveillance is only about safety and monitoring, but these days various companies are also using it for other purposes. It has been observed that a lot is happening in the industry on business intelligence part.

The emergence of high-definition surveillance cameras has not only changed the landscape of the security industry, it has also opened up vast amount of business opportunities for retailers throughout the globe.

Gone are those days when retailers used to use surveillance for protecting their assets, keeping check on their employees. Now in this competitive world, retailers of all sizes are using surveillance to know their target customer's buying and shopping behavior.

To know more about this Dataquest spoke to Sudhindra Holla, Country manager, Axis communication. Here are some pointers which retailers can use:

1. For large size retailers there are some applications where one can actually see the larger area of the super store where most of the people walk or stand and then retailers can keep their products there and the probability of buying is much higher. So one can also observe the pattern in the manner the customer's are walking in your store.

2. Another application is people counting. With this application retailers can know how many customers are there inside at the present moment and with BI they can make different announcements of the hot hour offers when there are maximum customers inside.

3. It can be used to maintain customer satisfaction for eg, like there are 12 counters for billing and only 5 counters are open. But suddenly there are two counters with huge queue then one can open the other billing counter to improve the customer satisfaction.

With help of these technologies, retailers have to make a balance between protecting a customer's privacy and improving market research. These technologies won't replace the basic principles of business, like customer service, but it will help in identifying areas the business can improve.