Page 35 - Security Today, April 2022

Merchandising area of responsibilities
How video analytics can help
Merchandising planning
Video analytics, when combined with POS data, allows merchandising teams to get real-time visibility on customer demand for categories, assortments, sizes in addition to predictive insights on how they are impacted by geography, time, and events right down to the store level.
Pricing and promotion
With video analytics, retailers can see how pricing and promotions impact customer walk-ins, product engagement, and sales giving merchandising teams complete visibility into the sales funnel. This insight is valuable to make pricing adjustments or recalibrate promotions to drive sales.
Assortment planning
When real-time customer engagement data at the shelf level from video analytics are combined with sales data, retailers can optimize assortment planning and change shelf space allocation or placement of specific assortments to maximize sales and profits.
Space planning
Video analytics can provide real-time feedback on the effectiveness of the planogram in driving engagement and giving customers easy access to the products they want. This data can become the basis for a feedback loop to improve the planogram and use the shelf space better.
tential product placement issues and identifying opportunities to maximize basket size.
Retailers with data on the performance of shelf space across product categories and departments can optimize the store layout and display units or even change the design of the store to offer most product categories the best possible exposure to customers.
Video analytics can empower local teams to make store layout decisions based on real-time data while ensuring planogram com- pliance or even using data as evidence to change the planogram.
A/B test store design or layout changes. The practice of A/B testing is a common practice to test or validate ecommerce sites and online experiences. With video analytics, retailers have the capability to conduct real-time, data-driven A/B tests to validate the effectiveness of the store layout or a specific component such as a brand-new display unit measured in terms of dwell time, heat maps and sales conversions.
In addition, video analytics also allows retailers to A/B test the effectiveness of store design on new customer behaviors such as BOPIS. For example, video analytics can help find answers to questions like “Would it make sense to design the in-store pickup area to showcase products that are not available online?”
With video analytics, retailers have the flexibility to test any number of store layout or design variations across multiple loca- tions at a time.
Supercharge merchandising tactics. The merchandising func- tion is at crossroads as retailers scramble to offer an omnichan- nel customer experience and stay ahead of evolving customer expectations. Technology solutions, like video analytics, can play a significant role in helping merchandising teams recalibrate their priorities, and become agile to keep pace with changes. Accord- ing to McKinsey, the merchandising function will be driven by automation and here is how video analytics can help enable the transition to agile merchandising.
Improve storefront design. Storefront design has always been a major factor in retail success. When done right, creative store- fronts make new customers feel curious and existing customers satisfied with their choice.
Video analytics can help retailers gather valuable data to im- prove the performance of storefront design.
• Heatmaps and dwell times can be used to understand which dis-
play elements are attracting attention
• Changes in display design or layout can be put through an A/B
test to measure improvements in engagement and walk-ins
• Pathmaps can show how many people walk past the storefront (bounce rate) and what percentage of people walking by enter
the store.
• All of the above insights can be correlated to other data such
as holidays, time of day, day of the week, promotions, online campaigns to name a few to give a better insight on storefront designs that encourage desired customer behavior
Ensure layout and design compliance. There are three reasons why store layout and design compliance is a major operational requirement in retail chains:
• One of the key promises of a brand is delivering consistency
at every touchpoint. In-store design and layout is an important factor that helps retailers create a unique yet consistent experi- ence for customers.
• Layout and design compliance is also a key requirement for brands that may have paid for premium shelf space or set up special display areas. Retailers rely on physical in-store audits to verify design or layout compliance across stores.
• Ensuring that the store layout does not cause unintended issues such as closed spaces, bottlenecks, or blocks access to lighting or surveillance which might contribute to poor safety or health hazards for employees and customers.
Video analytics enable retail compliance, marketing, and mer- chandising teams to monitor store layout and design compliance at scale across a large number of locations.
As AI-based analytics become commonplace for use in video surveillance, it’s a perfect time to consider the additional value these intelligent devices can bring to operations, sales, and mar- keting efforts. Business intelligence doesn’t have to be something that only Fortune 500 companies talk about. The technology is here today, and it has the potential to signifi-
cantly bolster revenue for retail businesses of any size.
Will Kelso is the senior vice president, managed networking and business intelligence at Interface Systems.
WWW.SECURITYTODAY.COM 35