



Retail cam mixes surveillance with sales


Mahesh Sharma


A screen shot of Mobotix retail cam heat map showing in-store traffic.


Retailers have started tracking in-store shopper movements as a way to increase profits but privacy experts believe the industry needs to come clean about the covert sales tactics.

Matthew Binns more than halved the number of security cameras at the Robin Hood and Glynn pubs in South Australia, by installing 18 Mobotix cameras which provide greater coverage with 360 degree viewing angles. The move was designed make the premises more secure, triggering alarms if people were "casing the joint", but new software allows the company to use the cameras to track customer movements in order to boost sales.

Binns has already maximised sales potential using data from the camera software to redesign the bottle shop layout and relocate particular products. Store owners can track the numbers and movements of customers, and a heat map displays the most popular parts of the store. More sophisticated features are in the pipeline.

"It gives us a traditional security camera aspect but it gives us more," Binns said. "The heat maps show the ant trail [of customer movements] that happens throughout your venue which means we can put a greater emphasis on retail displays for gross profit."

In 2010 the World Privacy Forum published the The One Way Mirror Society report which explored whether security footage could be used for marketing purposes, according to executive director Pam Dixon. This was an unimaginable scenario at the time but industry won the race to the bottom.

WPF has just finished another report about retailers using security cameras to boost sales, a market led by technology vendors RetailNext in the US and by the German-based Mobotix in Australia. She said these companies should follow the lead of competitor Euclid Elements that allows customers to opt out of being monitored by retailers.

Euclid Elements's technology tracks shoppers via the Wi-Fi signals emitted by their iPhones, rather than security cameras. It offers the option to opt out, but shoppers need to follow several prompts to achieve this.

"This is a very new industry, and it's a little bit cowboy and Indians, and there's a lot of people doing things just because they can," Dixon said.

"I think it's incredibly important to offer consumers this choice about how the information they're dropping like digital breadcrumbs gets picked up and used. I think all companies should offer [opt-out]."

Mobotix started its life building rugged cameras but quickly expanded into the high-end security market where its 3 megapixel cameras produce an image quality that claims to be 30 times better than competitors, according to managing director Asia Pacific Graham Wheeler. The company just released the Mobotix Analytics software to extract sales information from the network-enabled cameras, so store owners can use the security footage and the data to boost sales.

Wheeler said current legislation limits how the cameras are used. In states that have outlawed audio recording, Mobotix mutes the camera's microphone, he said.

"The same thing can be done with the video footage. You can obscure it, you can lock out people from viewing it, you can stop it from recording, so it's not recording."

Binns plans to use the tracking software in the hotels' gaming rooms in Adelaide. He believes the cameras are a better way to service customers.

"We're not identifying individuals. All we are identifying is a group of individuals that en masse are moving around," he said. "We talk about the heat maps, we don't see the need of identifying an individual.

WPF's Dixon said at a minimum customers should have the ability to opt-out of tracking technologies.

"Things have changed and I recognise that, but I also recognise that people value having a sense of personal privacy and control over their information. There needs to be a balance between just grabbing anything you can and not doing anything at all. I think the balance is definitely disclosing to consumers and just being transparent to consumers."

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14 comments so far

  • Interesting. I wonder where the dividing line is between what part of this information is "mine" (e.g where I am standing) and what part is the "The shops" (e.g where do people go in the shop). I think if you go in to some one else's place (Shop, house, etc) that can reasonably have some rights about knowing where you are.
    I do not think that a security system that allows you to opt out is going to be a lot of use.

    Date and time
    September 12, 2012, 4:29PM
    • So... Another marketing ploy so what's new in that? I don't se anything wrong with that.

      If I walk into a bottle shop looking for Granadine to mix with milk as a drink or Liquor 43, I have to walk around looking for them. If there are 20 or 40 of us that do the same they might just put those items in a more prominent spot and along side them a booklet on how to make cocktails with those items...

      Granadine and vodka, or gin with cream stirred or layered... suddenly, I also feel I should buy a bottle of vodka... Liquor 43 soaked strawberries with whipped cream makes a great desert? What do you know? Their fridge has the spray on cream! I think I’ll get the liquor as well. Now I have to walk into the supermarket next door… are they the same business? They do share a common door… Oh well; I do need those strawberries now. I wonder what marketing ploy they’ll have in there…

      Wow... I get everything in one place and I didn't have to look far for it...Oh, and they made a couple of extra sales.

      I'm not so sure about the air freshener, (Spray?), that a well known fast food outlet uses at their stores front doors... They all small the same and it's like a combination of Italian herbs and warm bread aroma as you walk by. That's playing with your sensory perceptions to make you feel like eating..

      The former method is a temptation thing subtle but very much different ploys there... on is OK the other, I am not so sure.

      Rubens Camejo
      Maroubra NSW
      Date and time
      September 12, 2012, 4:30PM
      • They say they're not tracking individuals... BUT, imagine the scenario where there was a camera near the entrance... perhaps not even owned by the store... then using time interval splicing of the heat map... in times of low traffic it would be a simple matter to link an image of an entering person with the path they took through the store.

        Date and time
        September 12, 2012, 4:45PM
        • i think i'll start wearing a burqua

          Gold Coast
          Date and time
          September 12, 2012, 4:46PM
          • This sort of thing makes me ensure I go to the shops with a list to stick by.

            Supermarkets are really advanced in the same game.

            Date and time
            September 12, 2012, 5:03PM
            • don't care how much they track my movements, the only way they will get a sale out of me is to provide a better and cheaper product. Let's face it, bricks and mortar retail is dying and simply cannot compete with the online global offerings.

              Date and time
              September 12, 2012, 5:38PM
              • I am beginning to think that George Orwell only got the date wrong.

                the toecutter
                Date and time
                September 12, 2012, 5:44PM
                • Privacy issues? why? I don't see this being any different to councils using meters to track number of cars using certain roads at specified times, or contractors with counters tracking pedestrians crossing roads at certain times.. It looks like a another creative marketing tool..

                  Date and time
                  September 12, 2012, 5:46PM
                  • Old news. VMS providers have been doing this stuff for years. Geovision released a Fisheye camera years ago.

                    3MP cameras are mid range now. Avigilon makes a 29MP camera, Arecont has a 10 and most other manufacturers are bringing out 5MPs now.

                    Bunnings has been using Verint for a while now which tells them that about 90% of customers who enter the store turn right.

                    And Dixon clearly doesn't know what she's talking about since most VMS have had retail analytics for years as well.

                    Date and time
                    September 12, 2012, 6:14PM
                    • Opt out of security videos would be counter intuitive. The difference between RetailNext and Mobotix are they for all intents and purposes are providing security platforms (catching people doing the wrong thing) and blending marketing (catching people doing maybe the right thing) and Euclid are only tracking pure marketing data and in fact NOT using cameras but WiFI signals from your phone. You can can opt out just by turning wifi off or go to their website and let them know you don't want to be tracked. You are removed not immediately but 1 to 2 business days later, the data is still collected from the date of your visit but removed later.

                      Opt out of video is not so simple (I just rub out the image ... I don't think so) and the way camera based marketing tracking should occur is they don't record video at all the software works like it does when you move round a website understanding location and action and no recorded video is necessary it produces a heatmap like the article shows..

                      Opt out automatically for children and from video will soon be possible with masking based on size of the person. True opt out of video requires the camera to recognise the person through their path to purchase and blank out the video with a coloured box and is prone to errors.

                      Separating the security function and the marketing to two separate systems is the most likely way to provide for privacy and at this stage Mobotix and possible RetailNext do not provide this function.

                      Hong Kong
                      Date and time
                      September 12, 2012, 6:38PM

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