“Smarter” Stores with AI-Enabled Video Intelligence

Ai-based video analytics are opening the door to exciting advancements in business intelligence…and they can now integrate into almost any location.

As retail continues to adapt to the new normal of life with COVID, there is still much consideration regarding how to better manage both retail operations and customer expectations. Retailers need to be agile, adaptive, and dynamic, both now and in the future. This is particularly true regarding the store, as labor shortages, distribution challenges, changing customer expectations and frenetic pricing continue to impact the bottom line. Thankfully, there are new technology developments that can help.

Insite is a new, turnkey, Ai-enabled “smart” video solution that delivers real-time insights to retail store operators, marketing, merchandising and design teams. With it, they are able to understand and manage what’s happening (and, in some cases, not happening) on the store floor to ensure bettercustomer experiences and more revenue­–without requiring additional headcount. It works by integrating video surveillance, data analytics, POS and artificial intelligence (Ai) together with both new and traditional CCTV systems. This allows teams to dramatically improve service times and gain insight into their unique business and customer challenges so that they can do something about it.

Here are some real-world, applied examples.

• Better understand wait times and throughput to design a plan that schedules the perfect number of employees based on customer counts and traffic patterns
• Take advantage of peak hours by understanding how customers shop the store
• Turn shopper behavior into “KPI dashboards” that report on traffic, dwell, engagement and, if using Insite’s POS API, conversion, for either the entire store or zones of interest
• View the daily or weekly trends and traffic patterns of each store zone, display or service point
• Enhance the effectiveness of displays and increase impulse purchases by knowing stock levels, what customers are engaging with and when they appear to be waiting for help
• Using Ai in conjunction with POS data, manage shrink or theft based on exception-based reporting, such as a “refund to cash with no customer standing in front of POS”
• Tags suspect transactions and presents them every morning with video, receipt, and risk types for management’s quick, proactive review–which can be done by region, store, and specific associate to quickly identify potential personnel or location risks
• Maximize the use of high-traffic areas to test new merchandise, move products quickly or drive more high-margin impulse buys
• Detect repeat customers to so that staff or apps can better interact with them
• Detect potential security threats before they happen
• Increase profitability and revenue by generating real-time reports and alerts that for any of these features

When it comes down to it, what Insite and its smart video capabilities does is enable managers and staff to know what’s happening and take action with the information it makes available. Because it does it with technology, stores save time and money and can protect the business and bottom line. Working in sync with a secure cloud, operators and businesses keep their environment safe, operationally streamlined and optimized for customer experience with real-time actionable data. This capability has historically only been available at a premium per-location cost. The Insite platform offers the same capabilities and data options at a price point all retailers–both large and small–can afford.

If you’d like more information, please contact our partner All Point Retail at sales@allpointretail.com.