Future of Retail: Big Data and Consumer Behavior.

FUTURE OF RETAIL:BIG DATA AND CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

NEWS:

• The technology, which uses face recognition software can identify customers in a store through their smart phones, connecting their Wi-Fi network in order to track their shopping behavior.

•  Retailers can able to see the customers coming into the store, what they do inside the store, they are going to purchase or not. That kind of Big Data is applied in a retail store environment.

• Traditional retailers are using analytical tools which are available to e-Commerce firms, to track their customers. The software can anonymously differentiate by gender, adults from children, could also interpret facial expressions and also recognize repeat customers that will help retailers understand why someone did or did not buy a certain product.

•  Some retail stores use the platform called Euclid Analytics, to track their potential customers, which helps them to have a better understanding the activities, operations and design of the store.

 VIEWS:

•  According to Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, that kind of tracking is unethical and contrary to shopper’s expectation of privacy. She says that, “Legally stores have the right to put up security cameras, but the consumer expectation of privacy is being circumvented here.” 

• When a consumer looks into that camera, they expect it’s being used for security, not marketing purposes.

• Some of the owners of retail stores, shared that customers seem to have no problem with cookies, profiles that let e-commerce sites know who they are and how they shop. So, the technology doesn’t bother them much. 

\        THE MUSE:

• Synqera, a start-up in St. Petersburg, Russia, is selling software for checkout devices or computers that tailors marketing messages to a customer’s gender, age and mood, measured by facial recognition.

• For retailers, the rise of e-commerce is giving consumers more information and choices than they’ve ever had before, making competition all the more fierce. So, the store managers have been fighting back by trying to re-create in physical stores the sort of analytics available to e-commerce firms.

• The idea that you’re being stalked in a store is, I think, a bit creepy said Robert Plant, a computer information systems professor.

• "If I ever find out a store is tracking me this way, I would never go in that store again,” shared by a customer in a survey.

• The wall street journal conducted a study of over 100 popular smartphone applications and found that applications were collecting information about, "Location, unique serial number like identifiers for the phone, and personal details such as age and sex" and sending that information to marketing companies.