Most retailers use camera systems to cut shrink and deter crime—but the latest tech offerings are giving some businesses a surprising advantage.
It’s not just that video is becoming more powerful and useful, it’s that retailers are benefiting from solutions that are better designed around their business priorities.
In other words, it’s not just what tech you use, but how you use it!
Here are seven important developments we’ve seen in recent projects:
1. Fisheye cameras will deliver significant cost savings, and retailers are taking full advantage. It’s not that the cameras themselves are cheap – they are high performance, top-of-the-range units that give full scene coverage in ultra-HD—but they can replace three or four conventional cameras. So, the big savings come not just from buying fewer cameras, but from faster installation, reduced cabling and infrastructure, and reduced maintenance. When replicated across multiple stores, these cost efficiencies become a force multiplier.
2. AI video analytics are becoming essential. Retailers are using impressive people counting, occupancy monitoring and heat maps to gain insights into the number of people entering their stores, their browsing behaviors, how they move around stores and their dwell times in relation to merchandizing. This is improving decision-making around store layouts, promotions and displays.
3. Automated queue monitoring keeps waiting times down, helping to improve shopping experiences and build loyalty. Not only are customers happier, but better allocation of staff resources also ensures better efficiency too.
4. Essential retail AI-powered video analytics are now easily implemented and affordable. For example, for smaller stores (up to 40-50 square meters) a powerful but simple system set-up can comprise just a single fisheye camera, an NVR, and an AI box device. And compared with older solutions, the detection, analysis, and alert capabilities are extremely accurate.
5. Video data is being integrated with retailers’ ERP software systems including inventory management, purchasing and supplier management, POS, and order processing. So, video technology is no longer being used just by loss prevention managers but is providing value to multiple departments. This is giving store owners greater control over their branch networks, making it possible for them to routinely analyze, understand, and improve performance. For example, it lets head office see how well local managers and staff are performing,
6. Systems are delivering ROI by allowing transactions to be monitored more easily and effectively, thanks to video data and POS being seamlessly integrated. This makes fraud easier to identify and eliminate.
7. Retailers are boosting profits and productivity, using video to improve control of operations, both centrally and at local store level. Today’s flexible solutions allow day-to-day security functions to be delegated to local store managers – for example retrieving video evidence to give to law enforcement agencies - leaving head office senior teams more time to analyze store performance and focus on strategy.
So, video technology is improving rapidly, and the above examples are taken from projects IDIS, and our integration partners have deployed over the last year, and every retailer we work with is finding new benefits and advantages.
You can meet the IDIS team in their booth at Retail Days on the 29th and 30th May in the Haliç Congress Center, Istanbul.
