Marketing and security 2in1. Camcorders determine profit
Installing video cameras in the store is the right solution to help control and minimize theft and fraud on customers and employees. But video monitoring is developing, and today it can help not only in observation. We’ll talk more about the evolution of control systems in this article.
Evolution: from security to marketing
Initially, surveillance cameras were installed in stores as part of regular shooting to monitor customers, employees and prevent fraud with theft.
But today, video monitoring has gone further and can close some marketing tasks thanks to analytics. Retail losses can be caused by abuse, negligence, or human error, and ineffective marketing decisions.
For example, product display, service quality, etc.
A new stage: video analytics
Video analytics has turned monitoring into security marketing, including security and artificial intelligence. This complex is explicitly intended for retail trade and solves the following tasks:
- control of cash transactions;
- queue control;
- counting buyers;
- face recognition and analysis;
- inventory management;
- increasing the level of service and work process of employees;
- optimization of retail space.
The business can be revived, developed, and scaled up in the shortest possible time based on the data obtained.
Collection of marketing data
The main goal of video analytics is to collect marketing data that can be used in advertising and promotions in the future.
- For example, artificial intelligence cameras can detect:
- gender and age of the central part of the target audience;
- preferences in choosing a product;
- shopping time, etc.
Combating internal losses
Most of the loss of stores does not come from shoplifting but the employees themselves. This includes staff rudeness, negligence, mistakes, and money fraud.
To stop this trend, it is enough to install intelligent video surveillance, which will record deviations from the norm in employees’ work.
Fight against shoplifters
Shoplifters have been and will always be; this is the nature of people. But for the business not to suffer from significant goods losses, security cameras can recognize thieves and add them to the blacklists of visitors.
Cameras record deviations from the expected behavior of buyers, which are set in the basic settings of the system, and notify the operator or security guard about this.
The article “Theft in the store: 3 functions of video cameras to reduce theft two times” outlines the main advantages of using intelligent video surveillance.
Control of empty shelves
With the development of IT technologies, more and more stores have shown an increased demand for monitoring empty shelves. After all, filling the object with goods directly affects the attendance of the outlet and the level of purchases.
The smart option works based on a comparative analysis of the current image from cameras with the base one, where the shelf is filled with goods. If a difference is found, the system notifies about it.
Such a function will relieve staff and improve the quality of the store’s service.
Instead of conclusion
What kind of camera to buy for video surveillance? First, you need to define the goals of the system clearly. Today it is possible to combine surveillance with analytics. So you can solve two problems at once: security and ineffective marketing solutions.