Shopper Tracking: Reinventing and Reimagining the Store Experience

Savvy retailers are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to better understand their customers so they can reinvent their approach to retail in an omnichannel world. One rich trove of new data is coming from a previously data-dark place: the store floor.

Innovations in cameras, sensors, RFID, mobile, edge computing and networking technologies are giving retailers new insight into how customers, associates and merchandise move inside the store. Retailers can blend these with other data sources and apply advanced analytics to drive both strategic planning and real-time decision-making. As a result, retailers can better understand who is entering their stores, the places they go, where they spend time, where they seem to get frustrated, where bottlenecks form, and what they look at, try on and ultimately buy. This can shape decisions such as store location and layout, staffing, merchandising, marketing and more, and even help measure return on investment on store experience initiatives.

As the lines increasingly blur across channels, this data can support strategies to serve the customer as they seamlessly weave digital, mobile, call center, stores and other channels through their purchase journeys.