6 Ways To Use IP Cameras In Retail
By The Business Solutions Network
I’ll tell you right now, this isn’t an article about loss prevention (LP). Sure, one of the most obvious ways of using IP cameras is for LP, but if that’s the angle you’re going to take in selling these solutions to your retail customers, you’re probably not going to have much success.
Leading security integrators will tell you that to win big, you need to show a strong ROI. That’s true for any technology sale, but even more so when selling IP cameras due to their still-higher-than-analog cost and the fact that many retailers have some form of an antiquated security system that they believegets the job done.
Luckily, showing ROI with today’s IP camera systems isn’t that hard — provided you know what these things are capable of.
To get your brain thinking along the right lines, here are just six ways (not including loss prevention) according to industry experts that you can use IP cameras in a retail setting:
1. Gather Sound Business Intelligence — “We’ve seen an explosive trend in retail over the last couple of years to use surveillance cameras not only for security, but also for marketing analysis, workforce optimization, and overall sales management. Typical analytic applications that leverage live and recorded video include anything from measuring how long customers ‘dwell’ around a certain retail display and queue lengths at checkout lines to people counting and staffing schedules. Leveraging this information, retailers can make real and predictive decisions regarding business operations.” Debjit Das, VP of global marketing, Verint Video Intelligence Solutions
2. Improve Customer Service — “A car dealership can use a license plate recognition camera to capture the cars entering their lot to allow the service managers to personally greet anyone coming into the service center.” Yoav Stern, president and CEO, DVTEL
3. Send Personalized Marketing Messages To Customers — “A store can leverage video surveillance, tied in with license plate recognition, to determine when this customer is on-site, and the store can then send sale notifications to the user’s smartphone based on loyaly card data, right before they enter the store. Retailers can then use this information to determine not only what attracts a customer to that store, but what sale items specifically interest them.” Allyn Pon, director of product development, MicroPower Technologies
4. Identify Age, Gender Of Customers — “Video systems are now also able to identify attributes of customers such as relative age and gender, suggesting a whole new future range of useful tools to identify customer patterns.” Robert Kramer, product manager/security products, Panasonic
5. Integrate With Other Systems — “Behind the scenes, retailers and restaurants are using IP cameras to make sure safety procedures are being implemented and followed. They can also sync video with RFID information to properly document the shipping and receiving of goods or to make sure that deliveries are not left unattended.” David Wedel, strategic business development manager, Sony Electronics
6. Measure Conversion Rates — “Video analytics can help determine conversion rates based on POS vs. store traffic and see how long people have to wait at checkout.” Jumbi Edulbehram, VP of business development, Next Level Security Systems