How Video Data Can Help Retailers Maximize Store Layout and Navigation

Holiday seasons are of strategic importance to retailers and, ahead of each round of festivities, retailers are hard at work planning how to best attract and engage consumers, encourage them to make purchases and convert them into returning customers. Relying on Big Data and business intelligence for decision making, many retailers don’t realize they have access to an untouched treasure trove of insights: video data.

Video surveillance has long served retailers for loss prevention, crime deterrence, and employee oversight. However, with the introduction of AI-based Video Content Analytics, retailers are discovering that the value of surveillance footage can be extended beyond traditional security applications. The ability to measure hotspots, traffic flow, dwell time, and product display activity, and to compare these trends over time, is empowering retailers to maximize store layout and navigation and drive conversions.

Video surveillance captures in-store traffic data and, by understanding how customers typically navigate through the store space and how long they spend in certain locations, retailers can identify in-store behavior patterns to drive optimization.

Heat Maps:

• With Video Content Analytics, retailers can apply heat maps to easily understand where shoppers tend to concentrate and the areas where they dwell the longest.
• Why it matters: Understanding high traffic spaces can help retailers maximize floor space and display configurations based on insight into the products and locations consumers find most compelling. They can also identify underutilized and strategic areas and better leverage them.

Path Data:

• Retailers can understand the directions of traffic flows and the pathways consumers typically take when navigating the shop.
• Why it matters: Retailers can assess whether their store setup is creating bottlenecks and how to optimally set up the store, so it conforms to consumer navigational preferences. The data can also be used for A/B testing different layouts to design the most productive floor space navigation.

Trend Analysis:

• Data-driven video intelligence makes it easy to quickly identify and understand in-store behavioral patterns.
• Why it matters: Retailers want to deliver a positive experience time and again. By understanding consumer preferences and changing trends, they can respond effectively and efficiently to customer needs and wants, deploy staff productively and respond to actual performance indicators – all based on video surveillance.

Merchants are always looking for constructive ways to optimize store layout, prevent friction in the shopping experience and deploy effective zoning and display strategies. By harnessing video intelligence, testing layout and design and visualizing shopper behavioral data through actionable datapoints, in-store opportunities can be better understood and met.