Retail Video Analytics Tips and Benefits
Retail video analytics provide a range of intelligence on crucial matters, including purchase trends, store safety and shrinkage.
Historically, in-store and car park cameras have mainly been focused on what might be considered negative security incidents such as theft and accidents.
Today, you can use video analytics to help your business. Retailers can take advantage of intelligence captured on already-installed cameras to energise business, improve shopper experience, as well as to manage security more effectively. Adding comprehensive video analytics does not require additional hardware, and video analytics can be installed quickly, without disrupting daily operations.
What is retail video analytics?
Video analytics is computer-vision, frequently powered by AI, that enables stores to monitor and analyse visual data from security cameras to improve business processes.
In a highly competitive sector, retailers can motivate shoppers to choose their particular store, and to choose physical stores generally rather than shopping online.
What are video analytics used for?
Video analytics can be used to investigate a full range of critical store operations from sales performance to loss prevention.
Video analytics provide insight to help improve business processes:
Real-time store occupancy (Resourcing, safety, compliance, and footfall management)
Occupancy trends (Marketing effectiveness)
Queue management (Customer experience)
Shopper heatmaps (Layout optimisation)
Aisle dwell times (Product selection)
Anti-backtracking (Loss prevention)
Theft detection (Profit protection)
Fall detection (Safety)
Purchase volumes (Stock control)
By harnessing valuable data, retailers can identify areas that require instant in-store attention, and take proactive measures to improve business processes over time.
Video analytics empower retail staff
Video analytics enable retailers to automate relatively mundane tasks and afford more time to staff to focus on higher-value work. Video analytics also provide an opportunity for focused training to overcome performance gaps.
The key benefit of video analytics is that the intelligence generated provides a solid platform for data-driven decision making. Staff have operational data readily to hand and are able to influence customer service and sales positively.
Video analytics: top three business gains
1. Reduced losses
Reduced losses from theft as a result of video analytics positively influences the bottom line of the business. In a recent article on intelligent loss prevention technologies, Facit reported on alarming retail losses: £11 billion annually in the UK, and $94.5 billion annually in the USA.
Video analytics enable retailers to detect thefts in progress as well as to analyse events and potential security weakness to prevent occurrences in the future.
2. Customer attraction and retention
Attracting customers and customer retention are vital to the success of any retailer. In an article on customer defection, Facit described the choices shoppers have and what influences them to abandon a purchase or defect to a competitor or an alternative source.
Video analytics enable retailers to develop a deeper understanding of customer behaviour, including customers’ likes, wants and needs, as well as elements that have the potential to drive customers away.
3. Improved staff performance
With better analytics tools and more accurate insights retail staff in every department are more empowered, more engaged and more productive. The improved performance of teams across the business, from Procurement and Marketing to Customer Service teams, boosts the overall performance of the business.
Employee engagement has been highlighted for some time as a performance booster. In his article on How Video Analytics Increase Emplyee Engagement, Johan Ljungberg presented these statistics:
Companies with highly engaged employees tend to be about 21% more profitable than average
Companies with highly engaged employees report 17% higher productivity rates among their workforce
71% of executives say employee engagement is partly responsible for their success
Employee engagement can reduce employee absenteeism by about 41%
Top Tips for a retail strategy employing video analytics
Elevate the experience of your customers
Video analytics provide real-time and historical data on shopper behaviour to help retailers evaluate and improve store layouts and product placement. Analytics also provide retailers with the means to improve traffic flow and increase sales conversions.
Heat maps, for example, enable retailers to analyse traffic flow, popular products and potential bottlenecks and areas where shoppers are confused.
With the tools to interpret positive and negative influences on sales, retailers can create better shopper experiences to increase loyalty.
Many retailers have already begun to appreciate the benefits of video analytics, and it is predicted that investment in AI and analytics will become commonplace.
Optimise store checkouts
The checkout queue is one of the most important and commented on aspects of the bricks-and-mortar shopping experience.
The intelligence behind video analytics enables retailers not just to count the number of people standing in a queue, but also to understand the significance of waiting times. To prevent shopper discontent, retailers can respond by assigning additional resources, opening more checkouts, or modifying store layouts to improve checkout flow.
Reduce shrinkage using smarter technology
For good reason, retailers want to reduce the high cost of shrinkage that results from theft and waste. Retailers have made large investments in security guards, trolley monitoring, checkout video, product tags and physical barriers, which have not generated optimal results.
Look deeper into the intelligence generated by CCTV cameras, and beyond manual observation and intervention, to exploit the full value of the data already held.
Video analytics enable retailers to detect fraudulent transactions and theft. Automation and real-time alerts enable retailers to respond faster to incidents and reduce shrinkage costs.
Top tips for a retail strategy employing video analytics
Implementing video analytics in a retail strategy can significantly enhance customer experience, operational efficiency and security. Here are some top tips for deploying video analytics in your retail strategy:
Define clear objectives
Customer insights
Use video analytics to understand customer behaviour, such as dwell time in specific areas, heat maps of store traffic and product interaction. Insights can help you optimise store layout and product placement.Loss prevention
Implement real-time monitoring to identify and reduce theft or fraudulent activities such as shoplifting.Operational efficiency
Analyse foot traffic patterns to optimise staffing levels during peak hours and streamline checkout processes.Marketing effectiveness
Assess the impact of in-store promotions by tracking customer engagement and conversion rates in real-time.
Leverage advanced analytics tools
Heat mapping and flow analysis
Use heat maps to visualise customer movement patterns and optimise store layout to enhance the shopping experience and increase sales.Queue management
Monitor checkout lines in real-time to deploy additional staff when queues become long, to improve customer satisfaction and reduce wait times.
Ensure data privacy and compliance
Anonymisation
Implement video redaction techniques to blur faces or personal information to ensure compliance with data privacy laws.Access controls
Limit access to video analytics data to authorised personnel only.
Use real-time alerts and reporting
Instant alerts
Real-time alerts can be set up to detect queue lengths building up, or used for security purposes to detect events such as loitering in high-theft areas. In both cases, staff can respond quickly.
Train staff on video analytics tools
Operational training
Ensure that your team is well-trained in using video analytics tools, from interpreting data to responding to real-time alerts.
By following these tips, you can effectively leverage video analytics to boost sales, enhance security and improve overall customer satisfaction in your retail operations.
How to explore retail video analytics
Since entering the market, Facit has been a specialist in retail video analytics and has helped retailers around the world to exploit the innate intelligence captured on security cameras.
Our suite of video analytics products includes Smart Count, Smart Queue and Smart Zone, and a range of loss prevention and compliance solutions.
We would be delighted to discuss your analytics challenges, our video analytics solutions, and the projected ROI on implementing video analytics.
