Are we using security systems to their full money-making potential? Honeywell Security’s Daniel Wan asks .
Retailers make thousands of decisions every day designed to increase their sales. Whether it’s a department store positioning an assistant in a busy thoroughfare to offer samples of the latest perfume, or a supermarket putting copies of the latest DVD next to the till to tempt a customer into a last minute £7.99 impulse buy, they are all a series of small decisions that, taken together, can make the difference between missing or hitting daily sales targets.
Then there are the bigger decisions. How many staff does the local discount clothing outlet bring in during the Christmas period? What’s the appropriate ratio of shelf-stackers to till staff? Will the garden department of the big DIY store be busier than kitchen and bathroom departments on a sunny bank holiday weekend? If so, how does this impact staffing?
In retail, making decisions like those outlined above can be based on any number of variables; a hunch, past experience, the weather forecast or ‘common sense’ to name a few. However, an increasing number of retailers are starting to turn to a less obvious part of their overall business operations to gain better, more actionable and more reliable intelligence upon which to base these decisions; their security system.
The power of video analytics as a tool that can pre-empt – and to an extent predict – criminal activity in a store by analysing a CCTV image in real time and assessing it against a series of ‘risk criteria’, is the driving force behind the ancillary, commercial use of security technology. If video analytics can warn a store manager about a potential theft, surely it can also flag a potential sale? The answer is, it can, but many retailers are still unaware of the services that their security system actually offers.
Video analytics solutions are often deployed in public places to spot potentially unlawful activity before it happens. Video analytics is typically used in a retail environment to prevent individuals stealing stock in-store, or monitor the unauthorised flow of people and vehicles into restricted areas like stockrooms or warehouses. To achieve this, the system is programmed to alert the security staff if an individual lingers in a certain spot or moves in a certain way, and in turn provides more proactive responses to incidents and optimisation of security personnel.
However, in a store, this kind of loitering can also mean something entirely different; indecision. Imagine a car dealership where a couple are ‘loitering’ next to a Volkswagen with interest. Then consider the potential of analytics to alert a sales assistant to the lucrative opportunity so he doesn’t miss out on closing the deal.
Nothing puts off a potential customer like a snaking queue up the middle of the store. Again, video analytics normally applied for security purposes can provide a store manager with a way of tracking the build up of queues and alerting the relevant staff accordingly in order to ensure customers are served in a timely fashion. In larger stores with limited on-floor staff, this can be particularly important as it is easier for some customer to be overlooked.
Video analytics can also measure footfall, providing a retailer with valuable insight on which to base their merchandising decisions. If seventy five per cent of customers stop to admire a double breasted blazer at the back of the store, it might pay to put it in the shop window. Equally, with some analytics software so sophisticated it can show how many times customers have reached out for a specific item, a retailer might consider a special offer on a computer game the local six form students seem to want, but just can’t quite afford.
By measuring footfall, retailers can also start to track and analyse trends that help to ensure staffing levels are kept at the appropriate level. Let’s take a jewellery store with multiple sites across London as an example. In this context, through intelligently using their existing video analytics system, the management team might identify a shortfall in staff at the Oxford Street branch at lunchtime during the week, and make a point of temporarily transferring staff from other sites to plug the gap. This is an efficient use of resources, streamlining costs, ensuring that customers remain cared for and ultimately more inclined to hand over their money. With an integrated solution – incorporating access control – retailers can also easily program access cards to let the staff required between multiple stores at peak times in and out.
Measuring footfall using video analytics can also help to provide shopping centres with compelling data to take to potential tenants who are interested in setting up an outlet within the space. By showing which areas of the shopping centre carry the most customers on a weekly, monthly or annual basis, the commercial team can create an attractive business case for a prospective new retail partner or increasingly even a “pop up” store like a juice bar.
Even for retailers without video analytics capabilities, alarms or access control systems can also serve a non-security, commercial purpose. Some retail banks are now using an alarm system that triggers when a user picks a brochure up off the shelf, and prompts the relevant expert – such as the mortgage advisor or graduate loan specialist – to approach the customer and offer further advice or assistance.
A final thought, and an interesting angle to consider, is how the role of the security team within a store can also be expanded. Typically, despite their role in reducing stock lost to theft, security personnel are seen as an outgoing cost by most retailers. However, with security systems well positioned to provide important – and potentially revenue-generating – insight into customer behaviour, the role of a store’s security personnel could also potentially grow and develop into something that directly contributes to sales increases.
However whilst some retailers are waking up to the possibilities presented by security solutions, the reality is that the vast majority are still ignoring or under-utilising this potentially powerful part of their business. In a tough economic climate, every sale counts and exploiting every asset within your business to the optimum is of vital importance. Understanding of the power of security systems as business intelligence tools is one of the first areas retailers should be focusing on.
