Video Surveillance Helps Retailers Snag Thieves-and Sales
Digital-based video has vastly upgraded the loss-prevention toolbox for many retailers over the past few years. More recently, retailers are using the same technology to help them gain insight into sales, consumer behavior and asset management.
Technology providers are leveraging the power of video systems by integrating them into point-of-sale software to provide for a more robust platform to work from.
Among those at the forefront is Glendale, Calif.–based One Step Retail, which distributes the popular Retail Pro and CounterPoint SQL retail management systems. The company has aligned with Henderson, Nev.–based video-systems provider Quadrox Inc. to distribute a new line of software-based “smart video,” which goes beyond loss prevention to aid retailers.
“It’s video analytics,” explained Lawrence Buckley, president of Quadrox, which supplies OneStep with its loss-prevention solutions.
The company recently launched Count!Guard, a system that employs overhead surveillance systems to monitor incoming and outgoing store traffic. The system is more than cameras. It is accompanied by software that provides store managers with daily reports, giving them insight into consumer behavior and sales trends.
“It can help to evaluate patterns and, when used with sales data, can provide insight into conversion rates and measure promotions and other events,” Buckley said.
By getting exact traffic counts, it can also help managers adjust staffing resources. The system monitors total traffic as well as activity in certain areas of a store. The charts outline peak activities.
“You can use this tool to see what is capturing the customer’s attention and drawing them into the store,” added Peter Pishko, One Step’s vice president of operations.
One Step is also distributing Quadrox’s WebCCTV, a digital loss-prevention system, which also has some business-intelligence capabilities via its GuardNVR software.
The video-based system enables retailers to monitor sales floors and stockrooms from remote locations and connect to broadband networks to help with loss prevention. When integrated into Retail Pro or CounterPoint, searches can be accessed by a number of circumstances.
“If there’s someone who said they were shortchanged or [if you think you have] a false liability issue, it’s easy to find,” Buckley said. “With digital, the image quality is unprecedented.”
Added Pishko: “You can pull up a transaction by date and time and view the actual transaction. You can search the video for specific transaction types, specific dates and time, etc. If I want to pull up all ’no-sale’ transactions, it is a very simple process. Quadrox stays current on all of the latest business requirements of retailers; I was very impressed with their PCI compliance standards.”
Quadrox, whose international headquarters are in Belgium, will be in the Retail Pro booth at the MAGIC Marketplace in Las Vegas later this month to unveil a new product called Fusion POS, which takes the video analytics a step further.
“Imagine you are a business owner who is concerned about the number of ’no sales.’ You can pull the void transactions from a particular clerk and search whatever criteria you want and show the video,” Buckley said.
The advancements in technology propelled Quadrox to one of its best years of sales volume in 2008, coming off a record year in 2007 for the 15-year-old company. Still, the economic downturn has presented new challenges.
Said One Step Marketing Director Donna Wesley Rogers: “Most [retailers] are not already using it, and it’s far down their list of priorities. Our point to them is that loss prevention can mean a big difference to their bottom lines and that the return-on-investment is definitely there for loss-prevention systems.”
