The secret of major retail chains to boost sales using AI and IoT

Here is how...

Retailers essentially pursue three goals to be successful:

1. Filling shopping carts

2. Meet customer expectations

3. Optimizing workflows and processes

Artificial Intelligence can make a major contribution to each of these challenges, especially if large sales areas and lots of customers have to be analysed and reacted to. 

Let's take a closer look at some real-world applications for many new exciting technologies and concepts already available to retailers.

1. Optimize sales conversion

Conventional sales promotion via in-store messaging and discount campaigns has its limits because they do not address buyers individually. It's a real shot in the dark. Retailers who want to target their visitors successfully and stimulate them to buy more need to know when which people move where and how in their store.

Analyzing visitor behavior is key to creating individual buying experiences

The challenge is to automate stores so customers can be guided in their shopping as they are in e-commerce. Paying attention to customer behavior allows us to identify traffic patterns and optimize the placement of goods and in-store messaging according to their needs.

Smart cameras equipped with edge software for analyzing patterns in traffic flows inside large retail spaces can play an important role here.

Example: video-based customer analytics

In this video, you can see how these devices automatically recognize visitors and provide them with an anonymous ID, that allows tracking the entire buying journey inside your store.

Source: Udentify

Boost cross-selling

You can create a perfect sales promotion machine by combining smart video cameras with digital displays on the sales floor. For example, if a customer in a clothing store has just looked at a pair of trousers, the camera system equipped with behavior and object recognition can trigger digital displays to show matching offers to them.

Get to know more about our smart retail solutions.

2. Create a superior customer experience

If you think for a moment about what typically destroys the pleasure of shopping in stores, long queues at the checkout, goods that are not available, or unfriendly employees always come to mind. Technology cannot directly change the mood of staff, but it can help improve sales operations even in very large stores.

Reduce waiting times at checkouts

Security cameras equipped with AI-driven video analysis can detect if a visitor queue forms and initiate appropriate measures; for example, automatically inform employees. Smart cameras can even predict when queues are about to form and take timely action to prevent it. This is particularly useful during peak hours in very large stores. In the following video, you see how this works.

Example: Smart queue management

Source: RetailFlux

Ensure availability of goods: Keeping hundreds of meters of shelves filled with tens of thousands of products at all times is a major challenge for retailers. Conventional inventory management requires a lot of resources and quickly reaches its limits, especially during peak times. Wouldn't it be great if you could automatically recognize when a product is no longer available and notify the staff immediately when this happens?

There is already a solution for this, as cameras can both analyze human behavior and also detect objects, such as different products in a store. This enables continuous monitoring of inventory and detects irregularities caused by missing or misplaced goods and, if necessary, initiate refilling.

Detecting theft in time: Another reason for missing goods is theft; observing visitors in very large retail spaces is a major challenge for security professionals. Where conventional video surveillance reaches its limits, smart camera systems can help detect and prevent theft. If you want to know more about this, read our blog article here.

3. Streamline workflows

To provide perfect shopping experiences, workflows in front of and behind the scenes of a store must work precisely. Smart monitoring systems can help keep an eye on what is happening in the retail space and do the same for warehousing. For example, in stock control, managing access to warehouses, and ensuring security for people and goods.

AI-enabled camera systems can also help manage parking spaces and car traffic around large supermarkets and shopping malls. By connecting cameras with other systems e.g. in communication or operations via IoT, even complex processes can be widely automated. This helps save resources and enables people to concentrate on their primary tasks.

Another good read: How smart video analytics helps retailers survive in tough times

As you can see, the possibilities for video-based applications in retail are almost unlimited. With our open platform for camera apps, at Security and Safety Things, we want to help the best and most innovative ideas for new applications become true.

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