Tapping the Potential of Video Intelligence in Retail: March Networks New Searchlight Software

Today’s retail landscape is more competitive than ever. Whether you’re in specialty retail, or operating a quick service restaurant, you’re under tremendous pressure to attract new customers and achieve ambitious sales targets. At the same time, you’re tasked with reining in costs, reducing shrinkage and finding efficiencies in your staffing and operational expenses.

With the right kind of tools, you can now gain insight into all aspects of your business. Video solutions that have traditionally been used for loss prevention and security can now be used to gain powerful insights into what is going on in one or many locations. By deploying an IP video surveillance solution that combines your point-of-sale (POS) transaction data with business analytics, you can see what’s happening in your retail locations AND improve your customer service, operations, marketing and more.

Security and Business Intelligence

A myriad of possibilities exist for retailers who want to use video and other data with analytics to improve their business. Retail business intelligence solutions that integrate recorded video can yield the greatest return on investment because video captures virtually everything that happens within a store and delivers immediate, real-life context.

Video is often overlooked as a source of big data. When integrated with POS data and analytics, video can produce incredibly powerful video-based business intelligence that can add value to many different areas of your business, beyond loss prevention.

Valuable Insights into Customer Behavior

Video-based business intelligence solutions shed light on your customers’ behaviors so you can tailor your staffing, operations and marketing for optimal results.

For example, a people counting analytic determines how many customers are entering and exiting your stores. Integrating this information with your POS data provides conversion rates, so you can see how many shoppers actually purchased something from your store.

Build Customer Loyalty

Consumer expectations today are extremely high, and many shoppers report that retailers need to improve their in-store customer experience. Providing prompt service is one way to do this.

By using a queue length monitoring analytic, you can see how many customers are waiting in line and for how long. Analyzing this data over time enables you to improve your workforce planning so you’re never over or understaffing your stores.

In today’s fast-paced society, leaving a customer waiting in excess of five minutes can result in a lost sale. Studies show when a customer waits longer than 3 minutes, their perceived wait time actually multiplies with each passing minute. With video-based business intelligence, you can align your staffing to match your high-traffic times and improve your speed of service.

Maximize Your Marketing Dollars

Every dollar counts when it comes to your marketing budget. Being able to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and product placements can pay huge dividends in the long-term.

With a video-based business intelligence solution that combines a dwell time analytic, you can learn how long a customer lingers in a particular area of your store, such as near a promotional display or end-cap. By comparing this information with other occupancy data from people counting, you can then assess how well your campaigns are performing, compare across multiple locations and strategically locate your displays for maximum benefit.

March Networks Searchlight Software

Video-based business intelligence solutions like our new March Networks Searchlight software go beyond simple surveillance with advanced tools that enable you to root out theft and find shrink wherever it occurs. By integrating with a local POS system or your central transaction server, Searchlight gives you the ability to see what’s happening at the POS terminals in one store or a group of stores.

You can search and sort transactions by employee, store or transaction type, compare employee or store performance and identify trends with intuitive dashboards that summarize complex results. With Searchlight, you can also create customized alerts to notify you of suspicious activity like transactions that exceed a certain amount or those that occur when no customer was present at the POS.

Because your surveillance video is incorporated, you can drill down and investigate each transaction with video to verify which employee was working, the time of day, and any other relevant details.

Of course it’s always important to make sure data is stored reliably. The loss of video footage either from a drive failure, for example, can dramatically impact the results of applications such as Searchlight. That’s why March Networks offers customers the ability to order our high-performance 8000 Series Hybrid NVRs equipped with Seagate SkyHawk surveillance-optimized hard drives. Seagate’s smooth video streaming in demanding applications ensure that your video footage is reliably captured, and readily available for playback and analysis.

A Total Retail Solution

As you can see, video-based business intelligence solutions can add significant value to your retail operation. And the best part of all is they can be incredibly easy to use. Be sure to thoroughly investigate your options and choose a solution with high-quality video, accurate analytics, and user-friendly dashboards. You’ll get the best results for your business when you and your staff can use easily use the software and take advantage of as many reporting tools as possible.

2018-08-27T15:32:50+00:00

About the Author:

Dan Cremins
Dan Cremins is Director of Product Management at March Networks, a leading provider of intelligent IP video solutions used by some of the world’s largest retail and banking organizations.